Ghanaian authorities on Friday explained the circumstances of the statements recently uttered by President Nana Akuffo-Addo insisting that he (Akuffo-Addo) never denigrated Nigeria or Nigerians as former President Goodluck Jonathan had portrayed in a recent speech in Ekiti State.
They dismissed as untrue claims by Jonathan in Ado-Ekiti that Akuffo-Addo recently mocked the poor state of security in Nigeria and the weak status of the country’s currency.
Recall that the Jonathan had during the inauguration of a flyover in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, said that things had deteriorated so much in Nigeria that it had lost its respect in Africa.
But responding to the statement, Ghana’s High Commissioner in Nigeria, Mr. Rashid Bawa, said Jonathan “took the words of President Akufo-Addo completely out of context.”
He said: “Indeed, in the speech delivered by President Akufo-Addo at the Oxford African Conference, one of the instances used by former President Goodluck Jonathan, these were the exact words of President Akufo-Addo: ‘For most of you in the audience today, it is probably before your time. But in the late 1970s up to the mid-1980s, as a result of the discovery of considerable petroleum deposits, Nigeria was booming. It was the place to be.
‘We Ghanaians, who were going through very difficult times then, would arrive at Heathrow Airport, and be herded into a cage to be subjected to the full third degree by Immigration , and we would look on as our Nigerian cousins would be waved through, with a ‘welcome sir’ and a ‘welcome madam’ .
‘The newspaper headlines in this country were full of Nigerians leaving or forgetting bundles of money in taxis and telephone booths. Nigerians were the preferred tenants for those who had apartments to let. You could stop by any Thomas Cook shop on any High Street in this country and buy or sell Naira, the Nigerian currency, and you could do the same in New York, and I suspect in many other Western country cities.
‘I do not need to spell out today’s reality to anyone in this audience. I cite this just to make the point that the “the outside world” is well able to tell that there are separate sovereign nations on the African continent. But when the news is not good, then Africa is treated as one entity.’
Bawa also took exception to Jonathan’s reference to Akufo-Addo’s purported disposition towards cattle-rearing.
His words: “The other alleged remark that ‘Ghana is not Nigeria where cattle can roam about anyhow’ has never been made by President Akufo-Addo. That is not his way of speaking.
“President Akufo-Addo, in many of the speeches he has made in Nigeria and elsewhere since becoming the President of Ghana, has described Nigeria as ‘a country I describe as my second home in the world’, and will never use Nigeria to make negative examples as the former President Goodluck Jonathan sought to portray.
“President Akufo-Addo enjoys a very good relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari , as he has with many other Nigerian leaders.
“Ghana and Nigeria are like siblings, and it would be most inappropriate, because of politics, for anyone, regardless of his or her status in society, to try to sow seeds of discord amongst the leadership and peoples of our two countries.”
