President’s speech on US deal ends the debate – Hamid

President Akufo Addo’s speech on the controversial Ghana-US Defence Cooperation that sparked huge public outrage in the country, effectively ends the debate on the matter, Minister of Information, Dr Mustapha Abdul Hamid has said.

The President has denied any intentions to sell Ghana’s sovereignty in the controversial deal which the opposition have described as a bad deal.

Addressing the nation, in his first public commentary on the Defense deal Thursday evening, Mr, Akufo-Addo expressed his outrage at the defamatory comments from his political opponents, to the effect that Ghana’s sovereignty had been sold by his government and himself.

“I will never be the President that will compromise or sell the sovereignty of our country. I respect deeply the memory of the great patriots whose sacrifice and toil brought about our independence and freedom. I have stood with you, the Ghanaian people, all my adult life, fighting for our individual and collective rights,” he said.

He assured Ghanaians that “Everything I have done, since assuming the great honour and privilege of serving you as President of the Republic, demonstrates that I remain focused on building a self-reliant, free, prosperous Ghana, which will be able to make her own unique contribution to the growth and development of Africa and the world.”

President Akufo-Addo, thus, urged Ghanaians to “concentrate and spend our energies on working together to achieve that goal of a happy and prosperous Ghana, and reject the hypocrisy of the naysayers who led our country into bankruptcy and the worse economic record of modern Ghanaian history. Let us rise above them, and build the Ghana of our destiny, the land of freedom, justice, progress and prosperity.”

Speaking to Fiifi Banson on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa FM Friday, Mustapha Abdul Hamid said the President having succeeded in allaying the fears of Ghanaians put the debate on the matter to rest and urged Ghanaians to move on with our lives.

“The President has assured the entire country that this deal is not as dangerous as the NDC wants the world to know, this conversation has ended. If after that people want to go ahead and do whatever they want to do, that is their democratic right, they can’t be stopped. But as far as government is concerned this Defence Cooperation agreement is not different from Defence Coorporation agreement NDC entered into when they were in power and therefore we’ll move on with our lives.”