The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante has described as \u201cunfortunate,\u201d comments by running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Flag bearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, that the presidency is religiously skewed.<\/p>\n
Dr. Bawumia over the weekend\u00a0accused the presidency of being biased against Muslims in terms of employment at the seat of government.<\/p>\n
According to him, the Flagstaff House\u00a0is occupied by persons who are from the Christian fraternity which according to him, does not create balance within the highest political positions in Ghana.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother major issue that I want to bring to the attention of the people is that; if we look at the Flagstaff house today, it does not reflect the people of Ghana in terms of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in this country living peacefully and nicely; Muslims and Christians. So we believe in the NPP that Christians and Muslims should work together and that is why whenever we pick a flagbearer as a Christian, we pick a Muslim as a vice. And when we come and pick a Muslim as a flagbearer, we will pick a Christian as a vice. So if, Insha Allah, Nana Akufo-Addo becomes president, he will swear with the Bible and enter the Flagstaff and I will swear with the Quran and enter the flagstaff House. So when we combine the Quran and the Bible, Ghana will be the major beneficiary. The blessings of God will be on Ghana if we have the two religions in the Flagstaff House,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Bawumia urged some NPP supporters in the Sissala east district\u00a0in the Upper West region to vote for the NPP in the upcoming elections, in order to bring religious balance to the presidency.<\/p>\n
But speaking to Citi News, Professor Emmanuel Asante said such comments could trigger\u00a0religious extremism. He therefore pleaded with politicians to desist from making such divisive comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you make a statement of that nature, harmful, though it might seem you are trying to appeal to an Islamic community, you play it into the hands of religious extremists who can use it to cause havoc and I would want to say that it is unfortunate that this will come from a man of his caliber. I will plead with politicians in this country to resist the temptation to play religious cards when it comes to politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attivor must apologize <\/strong><\/p>\n Prof Asante\u2019s comments come days after he made a similar call on the former Minister of Transport, Dzifa Attivor to apologize after she made comments deemed ethnocentric.<\/p>\n \u2013<\/p>\n By: Marian Ansah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante has described as \u201cunfortunate,\u201d comments by running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Flag bearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, that the presidency is religiously skewed. Dr. Bawumia over the weekend\u00a0accused the presidency of being biased against Muslims in terms of employment at the seat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=211164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=211164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=211164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=211164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}