Did CFA 10 Million Donation Buy Ghana’s Cooperation On Cote D’Ivoire?

Ghana's sudden change of heart when it comes to Cote d'Ivoire's internal troubles raises some interesting questions.

It is even more interesting when one considers the fact that at the height of the civil war, when lives were being lost and terror was being visited on innocent people by both sides, our late president refused to get involved.

In fact, when Ghanaians, both within and outside the country, called for Ghana's active involvement to end the war, the late President, JEA Mills told them to, in essence, “shove it” and focus on domestic concerns. Di wo fie asem was how the new diplomacy was termed.

According to the foreign minister, our new diplomatic mantra, Di wo fie asem” meant respecting your neighbour's sovereignty. Judging by the confusing and convoluted manner in which the minister tried to explain away this term on the BBC and other fora, one can say without a shadow of doubt that this foreign policy was developed on the fly without any critical thought.

In developed democracies where people are held to account, such fumbling and incompetence on the international stage would have resulted in a resignation. But not in Ghana, where accepting responsibility for one's actions and resigning as a result does not exist in the vocabulary of people in authority.

Since President Mahama assumed the presidency, he has been quick to associate himself with all the decisions taken by his mentor, the late President Mills.

He has taken upon himself to finish the “Better Ghana” agenda. He has even taken on a chief's title, though not the Asomdwehene II that many had expected but rather Ahobreasehene.

This is perhaps in recognition that polygamy and peace cannot co-exist and that a polygamous man can never be a King of Peace, tofiakwa.

Meanwhile on the religious front, President Mahama has been quick to adopt the religious metaphors used to describe his predecessor, calling himself Joshua because President Mills was a Moses.

It will not surprise me if in the next few months or years we hear that our current President has been canonized as a junior saint because he worked with the saint himself.

On the Cote D'Ivoire file however, it has taken the President a while to take a stance. Some will say it took a hefty donation of Ivoirian CFA to change the President's heart. As most people will recall, during the funeral of the late President, Ivoirian President, Alasane Ouattara donated more than $10 million CFA. Whether this was his own money or money from the state nobody knows. To this day, nobody also knows where that hefty donation went. For instance, did it go to the state (i.e. Ghana), the funeral committee, President Mills' nuclear or extended family or to the political party he belonged to? We are yet to find out.

However, one thing is for sure, and that is, since President Ouattara's donation, the fulcrum of Ghana's new diplomacy “di wo fie asem” has been thrown overboard. As usual, the nation's stand on an important national and international issue was changed on the fly by the President without any discussion or consultation.

Today Ghana is taking sides in the Ivorian civil war by helping the victors to crush the vanquished. While international organizations accuse both sides of committing atrocities, the Ouattara government has focused on prosecuting the Gbagbo side, including the former first lady.

Supporters of Mr Ouattara, including key figures in his government such as Guillame Soro and General Bakoyoko, who committed similar injustices, go about their business as if nothing happened. This is not justice.

At the height of the civil war many Ivoirians fled to Ghana, and for good reason. Many Ivoirians have family on this side of the border. They also see Ghana as a peaceful country where their safety and well-being can be guaranteed.

Most importantly however, many of those who came to this country believed in its democratic credentials, including our respect for the rule of law. They didn't expect a perfect country but they knew that in Ghana the law worked. Accused persons are deemed innocent until proven otherwise by a competent court of law. Arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and torture even if they occurred, were rare.

Of course there are some Ivoirians, especially ex-combatants who came to Ghana with more sinister motives. But even these bad nuts should expect the rule of law to be upheld. This is what sets a democracy apart from a dictatorship.

It is within this context that I find the recent “rendition” of Charles Ble Goude to Cote d'Ivoire without the due process of the law very disturbing. It sends a message to dictatorial governments in neighbouring countries that we will help them brutalize their citizens and hunt down their opponents if they asked us to without demanding they put their house in order.

It is also a testament to the willingness of Mahama to please his new master, Alassane Ouattara. For somebody who claims to be a democrat, Mahama's actions on the Ivoirian file shows that he is a hypocrite.

Appeasing the Ivoirian government may be good politics. It may even help secure our borders and indicate to the world that we want a stable neighbour to safeguard our prosperity. But Mahama and his government need to know that Ghana's credentials as a bastion of democracy were not achieved by the blatant disregard for legality or by changing fundamental foreign policy at the president's whim.

If the President feels that his predecessor's stand on Cote D'Ivoire was wrong, he should let the good people of Ghana know. Also when it comes to extraditing wanted Ivoirians to their home country he should not engage in backroom deals but rather follow the laws of the land. For a democrat, this should not be hard to do, or is it?