"Big powers" must respect Ghana - K. Agyepong

A New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential aspirant, Mr. Kwabena Agyei Agyepong has asked the “big powers” to respect Ghana’s sovereignty. He was commenting on the State of New York District Attorney’s indictment of Augustine Asiedu, alias Nana Amoako, the NPP Member of Parliament for Upper Denkyira.

Mr. Agyepong said he saw no reason why a sovereign state like Ghana should succumb to the orders of another sovereign country and “throw” a member of its legislature “to the dogs”.

He told the host of “Good Evening Ghana”, a television programme in Ghana that, the due process in such matters should be exhausted before such a person could be extradited. “I think that as an individual country, especially in Africa, we deserve the respect of the rest of the world…This kind of bullying tactics from the big powers, we have to stand up to.”

He noted that “we are an individual sovereign country and so while they allow the legal process in America to go on, at the end of the day when that process is conclusive, then we can take a second look at what is happening about his status.”

The New York State County District Attorney's Office has charged Nana Amoako and a colleague for stealing one million dollars belonging to a Brooklyn-based limousine company he worked for before becoming a member of the Ghanaian parliament.

Mr. Agyepong, a former Press Secretary to President J.A. Kufuor described the issue as dicey and said “even Americans themselves have given the indication that when an America Congressman is wanted outside America, they don’t like it to give up that easily”.

He said there are laws in Ghana to take care of legislators or public officials who misconduct themselves. He has therefore asked the world to “respect the sovereignty of our country, we are not condoning wrong doing but, we have the legislator here who has some form of immunity”.

He said: “We can not say just from the basis that some DA in America in some district somewhere has a case against one of our parliamentarians, then we have to throw him out there, to the dogs, we won’t do that, it is not right, we should not do that…We have to protect our independence.”