Akufo-Addo and colleagues have lost credibility to bring back the three Sahel Countries to ECOWAS---Armah Buah

Deputy Minority Leader in Ghana’s Parliament and a member of Ghana’s delegation to the 6th Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Hon Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah said President Akufo-Addo as Chairman of the Authority of Heads of States and Government and his colleagues then have lost credibility to mediate in bringing back the three Sahel countries. 

According to him its best new faces lead in this effort, and added that it is very refreshing that the President of Senegal is leading this crusade and needs all the support to make this effort of bringing back the three Sahel countries including Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali work. 

In the wake of Burkina Faso yesterday introducing a new biometric passport without the logo of ECOWAS, he noted that, “if anybody told me that a brotherly country like Burkina Faso will have its own neighbor travel from Ghana to the United States of America and on live television and in front of camera behave like a traitor and tell on its own brother; listen we are not the one you should worry about rather you should be worried about our neighbor Burkina Faso, they are dealing with the enemy within. Do you know what that does? He queried. 

Mr. Armah Buah in an interview wondered if President Nana Akufo-Addo has any credibility to attempt convincing these three countries back to ECOWAS after his betrayal.

“H. E. President Akufo-Addo is supposed to be leading this ECOWAS effort and so he lost credibility to get Burkina Faso to come to the table and so did the other Countries. All the things you are seeing are regrettable and very unfortunate”, he lamented in an interview.   

According to him, it is important ECOWAS does everything possible to bring our brothers and sisters in these three Sahel Countries to the table; “but guess what it cannot be done by the old guys who have caused the mess that I have described”. 

President Nana Akufo-Addo in 2022 alleged that the government of neighbouring Burkina Faso has given Russian mercenaries a mine as payment to help fight an insurgency in their country. President Akufo-Addo, who is in Washington for the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, raised the claims at a meeting on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to a statement from the department.

Akufo-Addo said the mine is near Ghana’s northern border with Burkina Faso, which used the operation to pay for work done by Wagner Group.

The entity is a mercenary outfit run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added that Ghana’s criticism of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine made his country particularly concerned about the Wagner Group’s presence.