‘Accepting ex-Gitmo convicts reckless, unpatriotic’

Legal practitioner Egbert Faibille has said government’s decision to host two Guantanamo Bay ex-detainees in the country is reckless and unpatriotic.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Newsfile Saturday January 9, 2016, he said Nigeria was going through all sorts of problems as a result of Boko Haram while countries like Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania had suffered from all kinds of bombings as a result of active sleeper cells connected to Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al- Shabaab.

Mr Faibille’s comments were in reaction to government’s decision to accept two suspected terrorists released by US authorities from Guantanamo Bay to be resettled in the country for two years.

In his words: “You have a blessed country called Ghana …a very small west African country, yes we are to an extent a certain jewel when it comes to peace in the sub region and even in world matters. And then you have a government which wakes up one day and decides without recourse to human security considerations of its very people that it is supposed to protect and say, I have accepted these two people".

“It gives cause for worry. The Ghanaian is known to even go out of his way to deprive himself or herself for the comfort of a foreigner. So if you get Ghanaians ….and I know on social media people who speak for this government in their private capacities coming up with positions averse with what the government has done, it puts you on your hackles and you get to realise that despite our political differences, when it comes to our social national cohesion, the average Ghanaian knows what is good for this country.”

Mr Faibille added that “this decision by the Mahama administration is not good for this country and its people”.

“And it is fodder for any of these people on edge in global terrorism to look at this country and say here you are, we have the United States having created a problem for so many years and now that it wants to disengage, instead of allowing some of these detainees to go back to their own countries, you have agreed to accept them so that America will have a certain kind of problem off its hands. OK, my attention is now on you for what you have done, I am going to punish you.”

“If that should happen what will we do?” he asked.