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General News of Tuesday, 15 May 2001

Source: --

Ga youth told to exercise restraint

The interior Minister, Alhaji Malik Alhassan Yakubu, on Monday appealed to the youth of the Ga Traditional Area to exercise restraint in their dealings with the churches.

He said that attacks on churches as happened at the Osu Headquarters of the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) by some angry Ga Youth amounted to the people taking the law into their hands. The action of the club-wielding youth was a demonstration of the displeasure with the church's violation of the one-month ban on drumming and noisemaking instituted by the Ga Traditional Council.

Speaking to the 'Times' on Monday, the Minister stated that the action by the youth amounted to taking the law into their own hands, an action, which usurped the power of the constitution. "What the aggrieved persons should have done was to report violators to the law enforcement agencies and not physically implement it by themselves," he stressed.

The Minister added that in as much as the Ga youth would want the ban to be respected, they should exercise restraint and allow the law to take its course.

He also appealed to the religious bodies in the Greater Accra Region to be circumspect in their activities in order not to provoke any preventable violence.