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Opinions of Friday, 6 April 2018

Columnist: Oswald K Azumah

The Gh-US Military agreement; the true hypocrite

All has been said, one will argue and I agree too. But Mr. President, my itchy hands will not forgive me and I don’t want trouble with posterity so me too I go talk some.

Let me begin by congratulating your good self, Defense Minister; Dominic Nitiwul and the entire government for deviating from the status quo. Although some have argued and rightly so, that your government’s hands were tied by the ‘Gitmo 2’ judgment, it is still commendable that you decided to involve the people in the Gh-US military co-operation agreement.

Did I say involve? Well, we can agree to disagree on that. ‘Informed,’ is what I will go with. Nonetheless, well done.

For a democracy like ours, Nana if you want to involve the people, then involve them and if you want to keep them in the dark, do so but don’t pretend to inform them and then tell them they don’t have a say. That hypocritical approach your government employed is the cause of the massive crowd that poured out on the streets of the capital city last week.

Anti-Gh-US deal demo

Just like the Christian God, they spat you out when they felt you were neither hot nor cold.

I don’t want to be drawn into the vile debate of whether or not the previous agreements are similar, a root for the current one or whatever, what concerns me is why you should trick the people.





One, you say they should peruse the document but cannot touch it. This is a not not. I have never heard it before, and I have very strong reasons to believe that the Senate of US will impeach Trump for just suggesting such to them. Nonetheless, your NPP boys found this expedient so let’s just leave it there.

I should note that contrary to what you believe, not all those raising eyebrows about this US deal are ill-informed or are 'hypocrites,' if I should be as bold as to quote you. I have read and I have discerned, and Mr. President, you goofed. Not in the entirety of the agreement I should say. The agreement itself is good, looking at the reasons we need it in the first place. But the nature of the agreement is worrying.

Common sense should tell anyone that a military apparatus of a different state shouldn’t move into your country without proper checks, forget about the taxes, Ghana has done ‘well’ without that money so I can’t be bothered. But the Ghanaian needs to know what is coming in, we need to know sir, if you don’t, I do. And that is just one of the goofs that I think our ‘able’ MPs could have corrected were they given the chance to actually debate the terms of the agreement.

Nonetheless, I have chosen to trust the ‘goodness’ of our dear US folk that they won’t bring in anything to hurt us. Many ordinary Ghanaians who do not have the advantage of my lens are still concerned though and we all thought Thursday night, you will take advantage of the situation and explain things as a father but you chose to spit fire on your political opponents.

Well, no need to cry over spilled milk but your silence helped matters seriously.



You still have the chance, sir. You can go back to the screens and forget about the hypocrites, forget about the self-seekers and others. This time concentrate on convincing the taxpayer/electorate why the military of another country should bring in nuclear weapon into our country.

Did I say nuclear weapon? Well, that may be a lie but what else should I say if you and I don’t know what they are bringing in. Bring yourself out of the Flagstaff House and see how that sounds to you. Sorry though, I meant Jubilee House. By the way let me just sneak this one in, good move reversing that to its original name. Wo y3 guy wati.

Let me just leave you off the hook by saying please do the right thing, sir. You didn’t involve the people in this agreement. You merely told us what you planned to do. No wonder the Haruna Iddrisu-led Minority ditched your boys to pass it alone.

Minority walks out of Parliament

All you said yesterday was just part of the back and forth we have seen thus far.

We can still redeem our caricature image Nana. No one enters into such an agreement. Allow Parliament to do justice to this agreement before things get out of hand because these opposition people you’ve got Hmmm. Some of them have already said what I dare not repeat.



Good work from the CID though.

Allow Parliament to do its work I say, allow Parliament to do its work.

I should say your ‘adversaries’ didn’t handle their war well though. And in the words of Ace Ankomah of OccupyGhana, the NDC failed Ghana. Click Here

Considering that the NDC had itself entered into a similar agreement I find it hypocritical, especially John Mahama's Twitter post condemning the agreement.

The views expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the writer Oswald K. Azumah and do not in anyway or form represent those of Myjoyonline.com or the entire Multimedia Group where he is attached.