Avoid personality attacks and focus on your message - Rev. Emmanuel Asante

The Chairman for the National Peace Council, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante has admonished presidential candidates including President John Dramani Mahama and their supporters to be mindful of their utterances.

He urged candidates to desist from personal attacks and the use of abusive language and rather speak on issues when the mount political platforms.

Most Rev. Emmanuel Asante said some of these utterances may spell doom, and possibly lead to counter attacks, a situation he posited, would polarised the political atmosphere.

According to him, the message is what would inform a voter's choice, and not the insults, attacks and vilification.

''Let's speak on issues. We should be circumspect in our utterances. Sell your message and let the voters' decide...But if we mount a platform and start attacking our opponents personally, it creates undue tension, retaliation and instability. So I'm humbly appealing to all the presidential candidates including President Mahama to be circumspect, desist from abusive language and personality attacks.''

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has threatened to respond to President Mahama's attacks on Nana Addo if he doesn't desist from that. The Eastern regional branch of the party yesterday called on the Peace Council and the Council of State to call President Mahama to order, else they would respond him on his own terms.

President John Dramani Mahama has over the past three days taken a swipe at his closest rival Nana Addo, his latest comment against the flagbearer of the elephant family is that, voters' should not vote for him because he is a dictator.

The Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante underscored the need for all these comments to stop to ensure sanity and decency.