The Minority Leader in Parliament Harruna Iddrisu has, in a strongly worded statement, condemned Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo for his comments bothering on the presence of the Russian mercenary firm, Wagner, in Burkina Faso.
He noted that the president as a former Foreign Affairs Minister and Minister of Justice and Attorney General could have been measured in his comments.
“The President Nana Addo Dankwa has not only failed by creating economy mess, he has also gone ahead to create what you called a foreign policy crisis for our country…he is simply failed momentarily to have impulse control and to ensure balance between foreign policy and the security of our state, when he openly condemned Burkina Faso and mentioned the Wagner group of Russia,” Harruna Iddrisu asserted.
Speaking at the National Democratic Congress (NDC) delegates congress on Saturday, December 16 to elect national officers to manage the affairs of the party for the next four years, the Minority Leader without mincing words assessed the president’s utterances as being reckless and irresponsible.
NDC members on the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament, he noted, “will ask for detail briefing to Parliament on this reckless, irresponsible and unprofessional statement by the president of our Republic”.
He advised the president that “if he cannot provide us with food, he should not let them bring gun on us as a country”.
Background
President Akufo-Addo during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the side-lines of the US-Africa summit in Washington on Tuesday claimed the Russian mercenaries are stationed close to Ghana’s northern border.
He described the development as distressing.
“Burkina Faso has now entered into an arrangement to go along with Mali in employing the Wagner forces there. I believe a mine in southern Burkina has been allocated to them as a form of payment for their services. Prime minister of Burkina Faso in the last 10 days has been in Moscow. And to have them operating on our northern border is particularly distressing for us in Ghana,” President Akufo-Addo claimed.
Envoy Recall
His comments sparked a sort of diplomatic row leading to the recall of the Burkina Faso envoy in Ghana.
Ghana’s Ambassador to the neighbouring country, Mr. Boniface Gambila Adagbila was also summoned by the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Karamoko Jean Marie Traore on Friday morning to respond to the linking of Burkina Faso to Russian firm Wagner.
The Burkina government expressed its disapproval of the statements by the Head of State of Ghana.
Sow Doubt
But Ghana’s ambassador stated at the meeting that what President Akufo-Addo said was not intended to condemn Burkina Faso or to sow doubt in people’s minds.
Rather, he explained, the intention was above all to draw the attention of partners in order to raise their interest in Burkina Faso.