Story By: Ama D. BUBUYABU
Over the brouhaha that ensued between the Krobo people in the Eastern Region and the Electricity Company of Ghana, ECG, the government has chosen to use military men to allegedly attack the citizens there.
It appears the government has lost track on how to approach the matter and the use of conflict resolution skills to resolve the impasse; it rather settles on brute force with soldiers resolve the issue between the Krobos and the ECG in the area.
Failure on part of the government to use the right channels to handle this case, could rather degenerate into a new more serious conflict.
The youth there are of the view that It behooves on the government to build acceptable consensus on the current situation amongst the people of Lower Manya, Yilo and the ECG, and get the right stakeholders to help in the dialogue to resolve the matter once and for all.
According to a Youth Activist, Moses Tettey Dometey living in the Lower Manya Krobo argued that the thinking and the move to deploy Soldiers in the twin towns to harrass the citizens cannot be “intelligent” way of resolving such conflict.
He suggested that the government must rather choose an acceptable strategy and appropriate channel of communication to end the matter but not the use of military men that could rather aggravate the situation even than before.
Below is the statement the Youth Activist Issued in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
USING MILITARY MEN TO INTIMIDATE KROBOS IS A WRONG APPROACH BY GOVERNMENT
The government is trying to use a wrong approach in conflict resolution and if care is not taking, this will rather generate into a new more serious conflict.
If the government of Ghana wants a consensus on the current brouhaha concern the ECG and the people of Lower Manya and Yilo, the appropriate stakeholders must be brought on board for a dialogue to be tabled and a conducive environment and appropriate channel of communication must be used. But using a wrong approach rather has the power to bring to itself more complex situation even than before.
Since 2016, the people of Lower Manya and Yilo have not been treated fairly by the government of Ghana and along the line, others lost their lives while others were seriously injured. As if that was not enough, current situation in the area indicates that, the government is forcing a new introduction of PREPAID METERS on the people to eliminate the old traditional way of billing.
It is up to government and ECG official to take their time to explain why a prepaid meters.
Currently, as we speak, a troop of military men were deployed to the area to accompany the ECG officials to the various houses for the installing of the prepaid meters when there has not been any consensus on the matter and this is causing FEAR, TENSION, AND PANIC in the area which has impede and disrupting daily activities in the area.
In view of this, I want to call on the government, stakeholders of ECG, stakeholders of Yilo and Manya to come on board to dialogue the issue for a consensus to be reached.
For the mean time, I want to bring to the Attention of the government to withdraw the military troop in the area with immediate effect for a dialogue to be tabled first.
Our lives matters.
Thank you.
Signed
Bola Ray Jnr
Source: Nationaltymes.com
