The Ghanaian government has rejected claims by the former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan that the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo mocked Nigeria in a recent speech.
The former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan had said that he was ashamed that Nigeria was now being used as a negative example in the international community.
Jonathan was refereeing to a speech delivered by the Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo during a Keynote Address at the 2018 Oxford Africa Conference earlier last month.
Mr. Akufo-Addo in that speech drew a comparison between 1980 and present-day Nigeria saying that “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 further said in his speech.
But PUNCH reported that Mr. Jonathan while speaking at the inauguration of a bridge in the Ekiti State in Ado Ekiti, last month said that the Ghanaian leader had mocked the poor state of security in Nigeria and the naira’s weakening status.
Jonathan was quoted as saying that “He (Ghanaian President) said Ghana is not like Nigeria where cattle roam the streets. At another occasion in the United Kingdom, he made scathing remarks about Nigeria’s currency.
“I feel ashamed as a former President that the president of a neighbouring country used Nigeria as negative examples.
“If a neighbouring African president will use Nigeria to make negative examples, then we as leaders must know certain things are wrong in the country. That means we as leaders must change the way we do things.”
But Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria Rashid Bawa in his reaction said in a statement that Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan deliberately misrepresented the comments of Mr. Akufo-Addo for political gains, according to Starr FM.
“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,” the statement said.
The Ghanaian ambassador went further to say in his statement that “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.”
Source: Africafeeds.com
