Former Foreign Affairs Minister and founder of the Democratic Freedom Party, Dr Obed Asamoah has hailed President Mills’ declaration that Ghana will not support any military action in neighbouring Ivory Coast by contributing troops.
According to him, ECOWAS acted hastily in threatening military force to end the stand-off in Ivory Coast.
President Mills has come under intense criticism since Friday January 7, when he declared that military intervention cannot end the political deadlock in neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire and that Ghana “will not contribute troops” to help remove Laurent Gbagbo from office.
Speaking to host of Citi Eyewitness News, Shamima Muslim on Monday January 10, Dr Obed Asamoah argued that ECOWAS was only bluffing and could not mobilise the required military might to oust incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo.
“The position of Ghana as expressed by President Mills is correct. In the second place I am not sure that ECOWAS is going to mount anything in anyway, I think there is an amount of bluff there. A lot of them do a lot of talking but when it comes to action you don’t get many of them to commit”.
“We need to consider the risks in any situation before we get in, you must consider what happened in Liberia when we went in, the consequences for the Ghanaians living in Liberia…the same thing would happen if we enter Ivory Coast”.
An author and security analyst, Col Festus Aboagye (Rtd.) also told Citi FM that there was nothing wrong with the President decision to go public with Ghana’s stance on the Ivorian crisis.
Speaking on the recent fuel hikes, Dr Obed Asamoah called for a non partisan approach and accused NDC of playing politics with fuel pricing.
“They were playing politics with the petroleum prices which they shouldn’t have done and now others will play politics with issue which maybe they also shouldn’t be doing. I think it is about time we look at these things dispassionately…and they (NDC) must be careful about the promises that they make and must be realistic on what they think they can achieve”.