The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, has said Ghana’s action against nationals of other countries, particularly targeting Nigerians, pointed to state endorsement of xenophobic attacks.
Abaribe, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday by his Media Adviser, Uchenna Awom, described as criminal and very disturbing the closure of shops of Nigerians in Ghana by its authorities.
Ghanaian officials had recently sealed off shops belonging to Nigerian traders in Accra for allegedly failing to pay the $1 million equity stipulated by the Ghana Investment Promotions Council.
Abaribe said: “The authorities in that country need to prove us wrong by putting a halt to further closure of the shops and attacks on Nigerians in compliance to the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS) protocol.”
The Minority Leader further described as willful denigration of sub-regional brotherhood and one that is in clear conflict with ECOWAS protocol, Ghana’s recent regulations, which stipulated that retail trade was the exclusive preserve of Ghanaians.
He said: “So what’s the point having an economic community if at the end of the day each country resolves to make laws and regulations that are in contradiction with the binding protocol.
“This is quite absurd as it negates the spirit that propelled the formation of ECOWAS in the first place.”
Abaribe accordingly urged ECOWAS to brace up and come clear in the prevailing circumstances to address the member-country behaviour and its far reaching implications in it’s protocol, particularly the issue of free trade and movement among the peoples of the West African sub-region.
He said that Ghana, which hitherto had been enjoying a robust relationship with Nigeria, had in resent times been treating our people with so much contempt and underserved reprehension.
