The leadership of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC), has called on the two major political parties and their supporters to exercise restraint and avoid all forms of violence in the aftermath of the declaration of the Presidential and Parliamentary results by the Electoral Commission.

In a statement signed by the President for the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC), Most Rev. Philip Naameh, congratulated all candidates in the just ended general elections for offering themselves for the service of Ghana.

According to him, Despite the success and peaceful conduct of the elections, the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference also noted with concern the loss of lives and injuries suffered by some people in constituencies such as Awutu Senya East, Odododiodio, Ablekuma Central, Bono East and Savelugu.

“We equally wish to urge the Electoral Commission to keep engaging all the political parties to ensure that all outstanding electoral issues and grievances are dealt with in the interest of the country”, The statement added.

Read full statement below:

Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference calls for calm

We, the members of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC), wish to commend all Ghanaians for the peaceful manner in which we have conducted ourselves in the December 7 polls.

We also wish to congratulate all contesting candidates for offering themselves for the service of Ghana.

Despite the success and peaceful conduct of the elections, we have also noted with concern the loss of lives and injuries suffered by some people in constituencies such as Awutu Senya East, Odododiodio, Ablekuma Central, Bono East and Savelugu.

We wish to call on the leadership of the two major political parties and their supporters to exercise restraint and avoid all forms of violence in the aftermath of the declaration of the Presidential and Parliamentary results by the Electoral Commission.

Having monitored recent developments on the political scene after the declaration of the results, we wish to humbly appeal to all who have issues with the results to kindly address these issues through the legitimate procedures for redress.

We equally wish to urge the Electoral Commission to keep engaging all the political parties to ensure that all outstanding electoral issues and grievances are dealt with in the interest of the country.

Aware that in every competition there are bound to be winners and losers, we wish to call on all stakeholders to exhibit maturity in accepting both defeat and victory.

In this way, reactions to any of the two conditions would be measured, modest and charitable towards one another.

We, finally, wish to call on the security agencies to be very professional in the exercise of their duties in the aftermath of the declaration of the Presidential and Parliamentary results in order to protect life and property.

Let us always be mindful of the fact that Ghana is all we have as our homeland and so work to maintain the peace and stability that we have always enjoyed as a nation.

God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.