The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has said that Ghana’s action against nationals of other countries, particularly targeting Nigerians, pointed to state endorsement of xenophobic attacks.
Abaribe, in a statement issued Sunday in Abuja by his Media Adviser, Uchenna Awom, described it as criminal and very disturbing the closure of shops of Nigerians in Ghana by its authorities.
Ghanaian officials had recently sealed off the shops belonging to Nigerian traders in Accra for allegedly failing to have the one million-dollar equity stipulated by the Ghana Investment Promotions Council.
According to him: “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”.
Further, he described Ghana’s recent regulations, which stipulated that retail trade was the exclusive preserve of Ghanaians, as a willful denigration of sub-regional brotherhood and added that it was in clear conflict with ECOWAS protocol.
“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 said and urged ECOWAS to address Ghana’s behaviour and its far reaching implications in its 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 recently been treating Nigerians with contempt and underserved reprehension.
