The British High Commissioner in Accra, Jon Benjamin, has cautioned that even though Ghana’s resolve in sheltering the two former detainees from Guantanamo Bay is purely based on bilateral relations with the United States of America, the Ghanaian government should not be complacent on the security threats its decision poses.
“It takes few people to create carnage and no one should be complacent. We should be very vigilant because it is a real threat to us all,” he said in an interview on Thursday.
He said lessons should be drawn from the incident in Burkina Faso that led to the killing of some 29 people, insisting that austere measures should be taken by the Ghanaian government to forestall any untoward event in relation to the two Yemeni guests.
Mr. Benjamin said the British government would remain completely neutral on the issue, saying he would not be allowed to be tricked into making arguments that could have dire consequences on the volatile issue on the ground.
“This is essentially a bilateral issue between USA and Ghana. Here we are in January, the election here is November 7, and we are already in election season in some sense.
What I would not be doing is allowing anyone to drag us to make party political points on either side,” he added.
Some civil society groups and faith-based organisations including the Christian Council and the Catholic Bishops Conference have waded into the issue, demanding that government return the ex-Gitmo detainees to their home country, claiming the stay here could threaten the security of the country.
The flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo has also accused President John Mahama breaching Section 35 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2008, (Act 762).
Earlier, the President, at a press conference, explained that apart from its bilateral relations with the United States of America, his administration took compassionate considerations to account in hosting the two ex-detainees.
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