The National Peace Council has urged religious leaders to promote and preach peace ahead of the December 2024 general elections.

According to the Council, the church has a role to play in nation-building and maintaining the peace and stability of the country.

Speaking at this year’s Minister’s Conference of the Ghana Baptist Church, the Chairman of the Council, Rev Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, charged religious leaders to desist from using unsavoury comments with the potential to incite electoral violence.

He urged church leaders to harness their platforms to encourage cohesion among members of the Christian fraternity.

“Every minister of the gospel will understand that we have a responsibility to protect the peace, stability, and unity of our country and that whatever we do in this country, we must ensure that we maintain the peace, stability, and cohesion of our country.

"If 72 per cent of us are Christians, then I expect that a lot of these people will be in the churches and therefore pastors have a responsibility through their pulpit to educate church members.

“Let’s avoid insults, cutting down people, and those things that reduce people to nothing, and ensure that at the end of all these elections, Ghana will be peaceful and intact. Be careful what you say, how you say it, and the environment in which those things are said,” Rev Dr Adu-Gyamfi stated.

For his side, the President of the Ghana Baptist Convention, Rev Dr Charles Owusu Ampofo charged political leaders and the government to uphold the statute of truthfulness and accountability.

“We model our political leaders, those who make decisions for our nation and so we preach to them when things are not good, we send them messages. On occasions like this, we speak to them through this media for them to know that Ghana belongs to all of us.

“It doesn’t belong to the incumbent, it doesn’t belong to the opposition. We are all Ghanaians and so public figures in general should be truthful in the work they do and keep faith to the citizens of this nation,” he said.