Does Ghana Need a Coup?
by PD Lawton, 2 October 2023
President Nana Akufo-Addo recently attended the second United States Africa Leaders Summit in Washington DC which was headed by Secretary of State Antony `Dead-Eye` Blinken who commended Akufo-Addo`s administration for its state leadership and leadership in West Africa by which he means Ghana`s role in ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States ( CEDEAO in French and Portuguese). He commended Ghana`s strong partnership with the USA including on the UN Security Council and its strong partnership for democracy and security in West Africa. Akufo-Addo made the following address leading one to question what on Earth made this once great leopard change his spots:
“Today Russian mercenaries are on our northern border. Burkina Faso has now entered into an arrangement to go along with Mali in employing the Wagner Forces there. I believe a mine in southern Burkina has been allocated to them in payment for their services. Prime Minister of Burkina Faso in the last 10 days has been in Moscow and to have them operating on our northern border is particularly distressing for us in Ghana. Apart from great powers once again making Africa their theatre of operations, we were particularly positioned, as you know about, over the Ukraine war where we have been very very vocal and upfront about condemning the invasion by Russia and therefore to now have this group on our borders is a matter of some considerable disquiet and concern for us.
We would really like to have the privileged opportunity to talk about these implications and what we believe ought to be the case. This was also the discussion in the Congress which took place yesterday which I found very fruitful. And the themes of that discussion should be the themes we continue to address to what extent we can have you as a partner in confronting these threats and it is very important that ECOWAS remains a democratic space. The reasons we took actions over the coup d’états in Burkina Faso, in Mali and in Guinea. ECOWAS has been very insistent in refusing to deal with these governments because it’s the undemocratic nature of their accession to power. The commitment to democratic institutions is a high priority for our states. We in Ghana have been through all kinds of arrangements along the path, one party state, all kinds of experiments have taken place and our people are now very clear in their minds , they want to go down the avenue of democratic engagement and that is why the last 30 years of the 4th republic has been the most stable in our countries history. We want to do everything to preserve that. But there are enemies of democracy that are working hard in West Africa today.
Therefore it’s important that we bring that matter to your notice and see to what extent we can engage you as a reliable partner in the pushback of all those forces. And there are other areas too of course for economic growth and development and for making prosperity for our people which is to some extent part and parcel of the same fight. If the young people have things to do they are not going to be recruits for terrorist forces, but specifically what we can do about the terrorist threat in West Africa is now the major security concern of all our states, especially the coastal states that up to now , until the last 6 months have been relatively free of the threat. But now on all our common borders Benin, Togo,Ghana, Cote D`Ivoire are these forces that are operating there. We have to find a way to be able to respond and respond effectively to protect our population…”
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This is how the Western neoliberal model infiltrates institutions in targeted foreign countries in order to gain control over government policy. They use non-government organizations (ngo`s) to lobby government and influence public opinion.