The General Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, says the rank and file of the governing party is fully behind President John Mills on his hard stance against plans by ECOWAS to use military force to remove disputed Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo from power.
President John Mills has been under severe criticisms from the opposition and some international relations experts since he went public with Ghana’s stance against a Military intervention in Ghana’s Western neighbour.
Interacting with Journalists at the Castle on Friday January 7, President Mills disclosed that a military intervention will not solve Ivorian crisis but rather escalate it.
President Mills stated that Ghana is currently not in a position to send additional troops to Ivory Coast since most of the country’s troops are overstretched in various countries serving with the United Nations.
Speaking on the issue in an exclusive interview with Citi News, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, said the opposition is being reckless, senseless and hypocritical on its position on Ivory Coast. “We support the President fully because we think that politics or international diplomacy does not happen in the vacuum, it happens against the background of your country’s interest. So the President has justified that Ghana’s interest should be supreme in matters of dealing with Cote d’Ivoire”.
“I am very surprised at the position of the NPP…when apartheid was happening in South Africa and the Progressive countries were agitating for a military action against Botha and his gang, Professor Busia then Prime Minister of this country said we should go by dialogue…subsequently after the matter had been dealt with, with some amount of diplomacy, NPP was shouting from the roof top after 30 years after Busia that Busia had been vindicated and that a violent way of overthrowing any system was wrong and so Busia was right”.
“Now, I am hearing the same NPP people saying that in the case of Cote d’Ivoire Ghana should pick arms and go and fight…dealing with your neighbour is different from dealing with people who are far away. You have to be very circumspect in whatever decision and see that it can stand the test of time and that is precisely what President Mills has done and I give him my full support”.
“It would be senseless for us to go and engage in some military adventure to put the lives of 2 million Ghanaians at risk. We were elected to seek the interest of Ghanaians”.
Johnson Asiedu Nketia rubbished rumours suggesting that incumbent Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo financed NDC’s campaign for the 2008 election hence President Mills’ stance not to commit troops to force Gbagbo out