The president of the National House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV, has urged Ghanaians to desist from "overpoliticizing" issues and focus on embarking on paths that are geared towards development rather than pursuing goals that have the tendency to retard the development of the country.

He said this in a chat with a section of journalists after the National Petroleum Authority presented plans for the implementation of recirculation model to the Council of State in Accra.

"Let's stop overpoliticizing issues and focus on development. Most of us are guilty of this, we are not objective in many o the things we say as a people," he said.

"If a person does even a good thing, it is seen as evil by another person only because he has affiliation to another party; but if it's in the interest of his party, then it's ok.

"We should not forget, evil is evil irrespective of who commits it. If something is good, it is good, it doesn't matter who is in power and which party did it. Let's understand this so we don't reduce the country to NPP, NDC, etc."
On the issue of the requirements for the registration of the national ID cards, he said that the nation should agree to add the voters ID card in addition to the other requirements such as the birth certificate and passport. According to him, the voter's ID is the key requirement for voting in the country and as such any attempt not to recognise it may amount to disenfranchising people who have been enfranchised.

He therefore suggested that" we should allow people to register and obtain the national ID with their voter's ID for now and give ourselves sometime as a nation for people to acquire birth certificates and passports as many people above eighteen years have only a voter's ID. After all, even with birth certificates, people usually acquire them when they need a passport. "What are we fighting over as a nation?" he lamented.

Togbe Afede indicated that most of the socio-economic challenges facing the country could be resolved if people would do away with greed. He therefore emphasised the need for all Ghanaians to concentrate on developing the nation rather than engaging in acts that have the tendency to retard the growth and development of the h. He lamented the tendency to inflate projects cost, questioning, "why should little projects cost the country so many millions of dollars?. How do we expect to build the required development infrastructure if little projects would cost us millions of dollars?" " We should pay attention to these things and be objective in our comments, looking at what other progressive countries are doing. We have so many more years ahead of us, so we should forget about our past differences and focus on the future" he added.

He also questioned why majority of Ghanaians profess one form of religious faith or the other and yet we are not at peace with one another. This he said, could be attributed to the lack of understanding of " love for thy neighbour" which is the first commandment of God. He maintained "we are not true to our religions, that is why there is much acrimony and indiscipline and also that is why even though we appear to be more believers than the average European, there is very little development in our country and Africa at large.

He further attributed some of of these challenges currently facing the country to insanity on the airwaves. According to him, the media, which is supposed to be the fourth estate of the realm in educating society, is generally filled with insults and political talk shows which are usually not geared towards economic development. " It will be unusual to tune in to a radio station without hearing people insulting each other, sometimes people who have never taken up rolesbor responsibilities anywhere disrespecting and insulting the elderly in society. How can we run our nation like that?, he quizzed, advising journalists to serve as a change agents and use their respected and important platforms to instill sanity on the airwaves, be decourous in their language and make development issues topmost on their agenda in discharging their .

Source:ghanaguardian.com