A presidential staffer, James Agyenim Boateng, has opined that the violent nature and conduct of members of the opposition New Patriotic Party makes them more dangerous than the two former Guantanamo Bay detainees they have persistently scolded government for housing.
According to him, if there is anybody or group of persons in the country to criticize government for exposing the country to possible terrorist attacks because it accepted to shelter the two ex-Gitmo detainees, it is certainly not members of the biggest opposition party.
Describing the NPP as a threat to national security, the former deputy Tourism Minister under the John Mills government said, if Ghanaians have over the years been able to live with the NPP despite its violent disposition, then the citizenry should have no problem accommodating the two ex-detainees.
Mr Agyenin Boateng’s comment was in reaction to a press conference by NPP MPs last week, alleging that President John Dramani Mahama breached article 75 of the 1992 constitution by signing an agreement to host Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby without parliamentary approval.
“In diplomatic relations, you’d have verbal communication, but, at least, when the United States approached us, they did not come to us verbally, they must have issued a note verbal to our Mission there and that’s how the process started. So, there is a written agreement and we are demanding to see it,” the Minority Spokesperons on Foreign Affairs, Isaac Osei noted.
He added that “Article 75 (2) of the constitution makes it a necessary requirement for such agreements to be ratified by parliament.”
The president’s conduct, he forcefully stated, provides grounds for possible impeachment, but this assertion has been laughed off by National Democratic Congress MP for North Dayi, George Loh, who has tagged it as baseless and unfounded in law.
“I will support any impeachment exercise against the president only if it can be established in law that the President has violated the laws in relation to the Gitmo detainees,” he said.
Adding that “but he has not broken any law as far I’m concerned,” George Loh who doubles as the Vice Chairman of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs of Parliament said. Not even an in-camera briefing by the Foreign Affairs Minister, Madam Hannah Serwah Tetteh, after the minority’s press conference, has allayed their fears or, provided answers to the NPP MP’s nagging questions.
According to NPP MP for Manhyia North, Dr Martin Opoku Prempeh, the Foreign Affairs Minister only ‘spoke English” when she made an in-camera appearance in parliament over the hosting of the two terror suspects.
“I’m scandalized by what I didn’t hear than what I heard. No reason has been given for accepting these Guantanamo detainees here. The Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke at length telling the countries where America has returned some of these killers. What she fails to say, which I’m scandalized by, is that all those countries were accepting their citizens. She said nothing to parliament except English,” the MP lamented.
The MP further explained that “she never in her statement answered truly, the total number of deportees. She never told us that they had turned Ghana into a refugee transit cell. She never told us how the president, alone could have negotiated such an agreement,” he bemoaned.
However, speaking on Peace FM in reaction to the Minority’s position, James Agyenim Boateng wondered why the NPP are behaving as though they are more concerned about the security of the state than President John Mahama.
“I don’t think within any jurisdiction, the citizenry will be more concerned about the country’s security than the president. In any case, if there were to be any problems with national security today, which government will go down in history as having recorded that problem? So I believe the President’s decision to accommodate the ex-detainees here was in the best interest of the country.
He added: “Why are we worried about what we know already. We should be worried about what we don’t know. We have been able to live in this country with our brothers in the NPP.
They themselves are a security concern. They are always fighting at their party headquarters. Guns; cudgels, bow and arrow, flying all over the place. We hear them screaming all-die-be-die, we’ve consolidated all the bad boys among other reckless comments, yet we’ve contained them.” Agyenim Boateng noted.
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