Be careful, Ghana may turn chaotic with your actions – Akufo-Addo warns GUTA

President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has warned members of the Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA) to be circumspect in their actions towards Nigerian retailers who have flooded the Ghanaian trade sector.

Addressing the simmering tension between Ghana-Nigeria relations in the country at Makola Market on Tuesday, December 3, 2019 as part of his Greater Accra Regional tour, Akufo-Addo stated categorically that “people cannot take the law into their own hands and enforce the law. If we do that, Ghana will become chaotic".

"We have to be careful about this phenomenon of taking the law into our own hands about situations that government is yet to resolve,” he stressed.

On Monday, December 2, 2019, some GUTA members at the tiptoe lane in Accra closed down about 600 retail shops belonging to Nigerians.

Their actions, they believe was in consonance with the Ghana Investment Promotion Act Centre Act, 2013 (Act 865).

As the situation turned nasty, police personnel were deployed to the scene to restore calm but the rioters pelted the officers with stones and also smashed the rear windscreen of one of the police vehicles.

9 persons were arrested during the clash.

The President, however, admonished members of GUTA to step aside to allow the Trade Minister and other key stakeholders who are working effortlessly with the immigration authorities to quickly resolve this pressing issue.

“Please, allow the work that the Trade Minister and the committee are doing with the immigration authorities to progress. I am confident that if we allow same to work, your issues with foreign participation in the retail business will soon be a thing of the past in line with the law”, the President said.