President John A. Kufuor has stressed the need for peace to ensure sustainable development. This was contained in a speech read on his behalf by Paapa Owusu-Ankomah, Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, at the 73rd National Annual Convention of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission at the Bustan-E-Ahmad Conference Centre, Ashongman in Accra.

The Convention, which was attended by over four thousand members with observers from the Christian Council, Seventh Day Adventist Church, The Catholic Secretariat, MPs and some members of the Diplomatic Corp was under the theme, "Promotion of World Peace: the Role of Religion".

President Kufuor noted that ethnic, religious and political conflicts had occasionally resulted in violence, which had claimed lives and property destroyed. "Consequently, national security has been endangered and Government intervention to restore law and order has been costly in terms of financial and material resources that could have been spent on areas of critical importance to national development," he said.

He said, in other parts of the world, greed, domination, discrimination, injustice and inequalities had created conflicts and expressed concern about the unjust world trading system, "that consign a lot of countries to a life of perpetual suffering".

"This is where religion can play a vital role in ensuring the facilitating peace," he said. President Kufuor said religion teaches oneness of humanity, love, justice and compassion, which are moral values shared by most secular laws. He said that for religion to determine the direction of mankind towards world peace, adherents of different faiths should commit themselves to the 'shared values".

There could be world peace if "we can accept the centrality of God in our actions and the fact of our accountability before Him so that when our personal interest clashes with our religious beliefs, we should readily sacrifice our personal beliefs for our religious belief," he said.

The President commended the Ahmadiyya Movement for its achievements and said the movement had since its introduction in the country in 1921 preached peace, tolerance and co-existence with all other religions and groups.

He said the movement had also been a partner of the Government in many social development projects like hospitals, clinics and schools that had turned out "some of the finest citizens of this country" and called on other religious groups to emulate it.

Maulvi A Wahab Adam, Head of the Mission in Ghana, called on Muslims, Christians and followers of other religions to co-operate, work hard and promote productive work ethics such as punctuality.

They should cherish and guard the country's freedom by ensuring good governance and fulfilling their responsibilities as good citizens. Maulvi Adam called on Ghanaians to pray for peace, harmony, morality and progress for the country.

He expressed concern about lawlessness in society and blamed the upsurge of violence and indiscipline in schools on the INTERNET, computer games, rap music, drugs and broken homes. "We cannot allow violence to destroy our society. If someone believes in anarchy and we let that anarchy control us, then he is in control of us".