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Kwesi Pratt has expressed his outrage over the address of President Akufo-Addo to the nation Thursday evening regarding the controversial defence cooperation agreement between the Government of Ghana and the US government.

President Akufo-Addo, delivering a speech yesterday, April 5, 2018 in a live telecast on national TV, lambasted his political opponents for claiming his government has sold Ghana’s sovereignty to the United States of America.

“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.

The President, in his first commentary on the Military agreement, opened up to Ghanaians saying “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…it is difficult to understand that such people, knowing what they do know, would set about so blatantly to confuse people, and go as far as calling for the overthrow of our democracy? A democracy that has become the beacon of good governance in Africa?"

"Surely, this is the kind of cynical manipulation by reckless self-seekers, which, in the fullness of time, the people of Ghana will acknowledge and condemn. And I am sure that as the facts become clear and widely available, and as the people come to terms with the evidence, they will reject the falsehood and deliberate attempts to destabilize our peaceful country. Truth is sacrosanct”, he added.

But according to Kwesi Pratt, the President was blinded to the real issues and spoke from his partisan interest, hence failing to see the clear distinctions in the arguments in respect of the deal between both countries.

Speaking to host Nana Yaw Kesseh on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo, Mr. Pratt minced no words in describing the arguments in favor of the agreement as a “useless partisan battle”.

He noted that if the President had paused to take a critical look at the agreement, he would have known that there were aspects that need to be “fine-tuned” to serve the interest of Ghanaians.

“It’s scaring and shocking to me that Nana Akufo-Addo is taking the current stance that he’s taking. You know why? And do you know why he’s taking the current stance? Because it has turned into an NPP/NDC battle. That is the problem. If we all sit back and carefully and soberly go through this argument, we will all find portions of this argument that at least we want to fine-tune. It’s because it has become such a partisan useless battle not taking the interest of people of Ghana into consideration and we doing these things that won’t help Ghana”.

Clearly not impressed with the President's address and the partisan approach to the issue by both the Minority and Majority sides of Parliament, Kwesi Pratt stated emphatically that “we have failed in our effort as a people to build a Parliament which has processes which emphasize conscience as against partisan interest. And I’m deeply ashamed by what has happened. When this issue went to Parliament, all Members of Parliament on the NDC side took one position…All members of the NPP in the majority side took one position. Is that possible in a 275-member Parliament? If things were not being done in strictly partisan lines, would that have happened? Not one person dissented”.

“At least, there are aspects of this agreement which we can fine-tune. Why are we not talking about the aspects of the agreement which we can fine-tune in the interest of Ghana? Why are we reducing everything to NDC/NPP and fighting a battle which has no benefit to the people of Ghana?” he fumed.