General News of Monday, 26 March 2018

Source: mynewsgh.com

US Military deal: Trump said in one word what I’ve said for 20 years - Kofi Wayo

Mr Charles Kofi Wayo Mr Charles Kofi Wayo

Maverick politician and founder of the defunct United Renaissance Party (URP), Mr Charles Kofi Wayo has said he is not surprised about the turn of events regarding the United States government’s military deal with the government of Ghana.

He said if he was President of the country Ghana, the US would not come with such a deal because they know he will know it is an insult and not agree.

While saying Trump’s shithole comment was Trump’s opinion, he indicated to MYNEWSGH.com that he has been saying exactly what Trump said for the past 20 years.

Chuck Kofi Wayo said it amazed him that Ghanaians only took the Shithole comment seriously only because it was coming from Trump in 2018 when he Kofi Wayo began trumpeting it from 1998.

He said when someone calls you a fool, you must be angry enough to prove a point, not to go and beg for mercy because of 20 or 40 million dollars.

“You call me a fool… I can say ok, you call me a fool? Then I will show you. But we later went begging for $20million”, he told MYNEWSGH.com’s Managing Editor in an exclusive interview.

“I told you people twenty years ago. Now that Trump has told you-you are now paying attention. I have been saying this for a long time.”

Background

Ghana signed a Military defence cooperation agreement with the United States government whose President early this year called African nations ‘shithole countries’.

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo whose government laid the US military deal before parliament and passed it, condemned in plain language the “shithole” comment of U.S. President Donald Trump with the president speaking to the United States Ambassador on the issue.

Mr Trump described El Salvador, Haiti and certain African nations as “shithole” countries during a meeting with lawmakers at the White House.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Mr Trump asked, after being presented with a proposal to restore protections for immigrants from those countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal. The Washington Post reported the remarks citing aides briefed on the meeting.

Trump demanded to know why the US would accept immigrants from these countries rather than places like Norway, whose prime minister he had met the day before.

Mr Trump received wide international flak for his comment, one of which came from Botswana, whose Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation called on the US’s ambassador to Botswana “to express its displeasure at the alleged utterances made by the President of the US.”

Reacting to the “shithole” comment, Ghana’s president said: “The language of US President Donald Trump that the African continent, Haiti and El Salvador are ‘shithole countries’ is extremely unfortunate. Ghana is certainly not a ‘shithole country’. We will not accept such insults, even from a leader of a friendly country, no matter how powerful.”

Former President John Mahama also condemned the comment saying it betrayed Mr Trump’s racist agenda to make America a white-only country and urged leaders of African Union countries to respond to the American leader as Botswana earlier did.