Secret Ghana-US Security Affair Dangerous

A former Member of Council of State, Professor Akilapka Sawyerr, has cautioned against any attempt by the government to surrender Ghana's security to the US government.

Joy News has intercepted a document which revealed Cabinet has approved an agreement to allow the US military an unrestricted access to a host of Ghanaian facilities and wide-ranging tax exemptions.

The deal will permit the U.S. military to use Ghana as a base for staging and deploying forces.

Read: Cabinet approves agreement for U.S. to establish military base in Ghana

Professor Akilapka Sawyerr
But Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul has denied any agreement for the country to be used as a base for the US military.

“The United State of America is not establishing a military base in Ghana…It is not true and they don’t intend to establish a military base in Ghana," he said on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Tuesday.

Confirming some aspect of the deal, he said the country rather stands to benefit immensely from an arrangement for the military in the two countries to cooperate.

Read: US not establishing military base in Ghana – Nitiwul parries report

But Prof. Sawyerr said the deal could expose Ghana to adversaries of the United States government and further put the lives of its citizens in danger.

The Director of Human Sciences Research Council, expressed “grave concern” over such arrangement although he was yet to thoroughly apprise himself with the details.

“The notion of an American base of any sort however described is in my view, a nightmare…the notion of a secret arrangement to surrender sovereignty over an aspect of security in this country frightens me enormously,” Prof. Sawyerr figured.

Describing it as “a matter of such great potential difficulty,” the law professor counselled that Ghana would better off staying off “other people’s business in this security era”.

“There are a number of problems globally which arise from the strength and the behaviour of the big powers and we are seeing country after country being drawn into all manner of things from this perspective,” he said.

Ghana-US security ties
The U.S. and Ghanaian militaries have cooperated on numerous joint training exercises designed to increase the effectiveness of the two in responding to international threats such as trafficking and terrorism.

File Photo: U.S. Soldiers assigned to Ghana's 1st Battalion

Ghana is one of only 13 African nations selected for the State Partnership Program, which pairs a U.S. state’s National Guard with the armed forces of a partner country in a cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship.