The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) says the presence of the military in the Banda constituency is not to cause mayhem but rather enforce the peace agreement that was brokered by the Regional Security Council (REGSEC) between the parliamentary candidates of the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress (NDC). In a statement signed by the Public Relations Director of the GAF, Colonel E. Aggrey-Quashie, and released in Accra, the GAF contends that in supporting the REGSEC-brokered peace agreement, “no specific ethnic group” was been targeted. The REGSEC-brokered peace agreement, they noted, was in connection to the disturbances that resulted in the unfortunate demise of one person in the Banda constituency in the Bono Region. “The Military wishes to state that on 30th July 2020, the Bono Regional Security Council met representatives of the two main political parties – NPP and NDC – to deliberate on the peaceful conduct of the registration exercise. This was in the wake of the disturbances that resulted in the unfortunate demise of one person. The agreement signed by Mr. Joe Danquah (NPP) and Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim (NDC MP – Banda) and witnessed by the Hon. Regional Minister stated as follows: “We the undersigned agreed today to maintain peace in the Banda District during the remaining days of the voters registration exercise and after, until the end of the 2020 general elections in December 2020”, the statement read. The full details of the Agreement were as follows:
- That the REGSEC will give the necessary security to the Banda constituency and the entire Region, before, during, and after the process of the 7th December Election. The REGSEC and the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders should meet the Chiefs to determine the boundaries of Banda.
- The two Parliamentary candidates (Mr. Joe Danquah and Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim MP), should stop bussing people to the registration centres, if indeed they were ordinary residents; they should go there on their own volition.
- Political parties should educate their agents at the registration centres to fill challenge forms in challenging people whose citizenship or residency they doubted.
- That no physical violence should be used in preventing people from registering.
- That the two candidates should pledge their support to ensure peace in the constituency by signing the Peace Agreement offered by REGSEC.
