President a Akuffo-Addo of Ghana
Ghana’s High Commissioner in Nigeria, Rashid Bawa, has denounced ex-President Goodluck Jonathan for misquoting President a Akuffo-Addo over safety scenario in Nigeria.
He stated on Friday that Jonathan “took the words of President Akufo-Addo completely out of context” when he quoted the Ghanaian chief of mocking Nigeria.
The High Commissioner stated Nigeria’s ex-President misquoted Ghana’s President’s speech delivered by on the Oxford African Conference.
He recalled the precise phrases of President Akufo-Addo: “For most of you within the viewers as we speak, it's most likely earlier than your time. But within the late 1970s as much as the mid-1980s, as a results of the invention of appreciable petroleum deposits, Nigeria was booming. It was the place to be.
“We Ghanaians, who had been going via very tough instances then, would arrive at Heathrow Airport, and be herded into a cage to be subjected to the complete third diploma by Immigration , and we'd look on as our Nigerian cousins could be waved via, with a ‘welcome sir’ and a ‘welcome madam’ .
“The newspaper headlines on this nation had been stuffed with Nigerians leaving or forgetting bundles of cash in taxis and phone cubicles. Nigerians had been the popular tets for many who had flats to let. You might cease by any Thomas Cook store on any High Street on this nation and purchase or promote Naira, the Nigerian foreign money, and you might do the identical in New York, and I believe in lots of different Western nation 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 effectively in a position to inform that there are separate sovereign nations on the African continent. But when the information just isn't good, then Africa is handled as one entity.’
Bawa disagreed additionally with Jonathan’s reference to Akufo-Addo’s purported disposition in direction of cattle-rearing.
“The different alleged comment that ‘Ghana is not Nigeria where cattle can roam about anyhow’ has by no means been made by President Akufo-Addo. That just isn't his manner of talking.
“President Akufo-Addo, in most of the speeches he has made in Nigeria and elsewhere since changing into the President of Ghana, has described Nigeria as ‘a country I describe as my second home in the world’, and can by no means use Nigeria to make unfavourable examples as the previous President Goodluck Jonathan sought to painting.
“President Akufo-Addo enjoys an excellent relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari , as he has with many different 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.”
Jonathan had on the commissioning of a flyover in Ado Ekiti stated that Nigeria had deteriorated a lot that it had misplaced its respect in Africa.
Jonathan in his speech on the inauguration on May 25 stated: “A President of a neighbouring nation, Ghana, not too long ago made two unfavourable remarks about Nigeria. First, the present Ghanaian President was addressing Ghanaians concerning the motion of cattle inside their shores and he stated overtly that Ghana just isn't like Nigeria the place cattle roam freely. That was fairly uncomplimentary.
According to Jonathan, “the identical President was talking within the United Kingdom when he made disparaging remarks about Nigeria’s foreign money”.
“If it has got to a level when the Presidents of neighbouring countries will cite Nigeria as a negative example, then we must know as leaders of this country that certain things are not going well, and we must change the way we do things.”