Ghana/U.S.A military agreement; President failed to defend agreement, instead was hyper-partisan.

He maintained a dignified and detached silence as the debate raged over a very divisive and controversial issue, the United States-Ghana military cooperation agreement.

But he knowingly approved his party’s one-sided vote to ratify the agreement and ram it down the throats of Ghanaians.

For nearly two weeks, President Nana Akuffo Addo kept Ghanaians in suspense; he left us wondering what, if anything, he as the nation’s premier political leader had to say about an issue that had exarcebated political tensions and widened divisions.

It is almost impossible to gauge why it took the President so long to step into the fray. Political expediency I guess. But when he finally emerged from the Flaggstaff House to make his views public on the agreement, Nana was petulant, bitter and confrontational.

Doubtlessly, Nana was in a foul mood. And the evidence was irrefutable. He took a vicious verbal swing at his political opponents, portraying them as perennial hypocrites and virulent anti-American.

Apparently, the president had borrowed a page from his 2016 election campaign book; hit your opponents hard and damn the truth. Frankly, speaking, the president was hyper-partisan.

He did not demonstrate the kind of political leadership Ghanaians expect at this crucial juncture. He did not rise above the fray. Instead, he got into the gutter with his critics.

When he eventually got around to shedding light on the agreement, his assertions confirmed what many Ghanaians had feared; that the NPP had breathtakingly sold Ghana down the river for pittance.

Critics of the agreement are right; the NPP administration in negotiating a very important military agreement with the world’s only remaining superpower, essentially folded, capitulated and chickened out, and in the process surrendered our sovereignty on a silver platter.

What this in effect means is that, the mindless NPP has singlehandedly turned Ghana into an American proxy in the war against terrorism, and the consequences will soon be glaring.

And Ghanaians should keep this mind as they go about their daily lives; the NPP has made them convenient targets for American haters.

Arguments to the contrary, that the agreement is a positive one, and that Ghanaians will ultimately be the beneficiaries of American military largesse, are thoroughly dishonest and feeble attempts to conceal its ugly aspects.

The president’s strenuous defense of the agreement which many have criticized for its unprecedented huge concessions to the Americans, was worringly lame, overwhelmingly weak and sadly pathetic. He failed miserably to address some of the fundamental weaknesses of the agreement such as American forces not being subject to local laws.

Nana’s attempts throughout his speech last night to rationalize his government’s hurried and thoughtless embrace of the agreement were strained and laughable and did little to convince millions of Ghanaians that they have been served well by the NPP.

Last week’s massive demonstrations were Ghanaians sending a clear message to Nana and his government.

If he goes ahead, as is likely possible and signs the agreement which his party shamelessly ratified, then the president would have betrayed the unprecedented public trust reposed in him by Ghanaians voters in 2016.

At this stage, given the immense anger at the NPP’s glaring ineptitude vis a vis the agreement, Mr. Addo will be well served were he to put it on ice, that is, suspend it indefinitely.

Or else, he and his party will face a voter backlash in 2020, the likes of which Mr. Addo has never seen before.