Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Rashid Bawa has said former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan deliberately misrepresented the latest comments by Mr. Akufo-Addo on Nigeria for political gains.
The former leader of the oil rich West African country told Nigerians that the latest comments by Mr. Akufo-Addo add to the derision that Nigeria has been facing as a result of poor governance.
He’d expressed regret that Nigeria was now being used as a negative example in the international community by Mr. Akufo-Addo.
This follows comments made by Ghana’s President Akufo Addo, during a Keynote Address at the 2018 Oxford Africa Conference earlier this month.
“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,” Mr. Akufo-Addo said in his speech.
But in a statement Ambassador Bawa denied claims that Ghana’s President Akufo-Addo mocked Nigeria in his speech.
Ambassador Bawa stated Mr. Akufo-Addo has always referred to Nigeria as “a country I describe as my second home in the world,” and hence could not referenced Nigeria in any negative examples.
“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.” the statement added.
Below is the full statement by Ambassador Bawa
The attention of the Ghana High Commission in Nigeria, and, indeed, of the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has been drawn to comments made by the former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Goodluck Jonathan, to the effect that President Akufo-Addo has made disparaging remarks about Nigeria.
It is important to stress that the comments made by the former Nigerian President, at the inauguration of the first bridge built by Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State in Ado Ekiti, took the words of President Akufo-Addo completely out of context.
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 are 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.”
How, then, can anyone describe these words by President Akufo-Addo as intending to mock Nigeria?
Again, 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 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.
……signed……
Amb. Rashid Bawa
Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria