The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) has hit back at Nigeria’s government for cautioning Ghana that it’ll no longer tolerate incessant harassment of its citizens in the country.
President of the Association, Dr Joseph Obeng stated that Nigeria cannot bomb Ghana simply because it is enforcing it laws. He urged Nigeria to enforce their sovereign laws if they had issues with others enforcing theirs.
He told GhanaWeb, “by the tone of his (Nigerian Information Minister’s) letter, does that mean Ghana has done something that is so much at the risk of Nigeria even for them to say that they are going to throw an atomic bomb on Ghana? No, they cannot throw a bomb on us. All that they can do is to enforce their sovereign laws so what is the threat about?”
“All that they can do is to also enforce local laws. If they want to enforce it and protect their citizens like the way they closed their border to bring security to their country and also to curb dumping as they said so that they can protect the local production of rice and other things, that is the protectionist approach.”
“The fact that they also submitted over 45 products from entering its country also means that they were being protectionist on their manufacturers so what bars Ghana from enforcing its laws especially when what you are doing is not in contravention with anything,” he added.
This comes on the back of the unending retail war between Nigerian traders in Ghana and the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA).
While Ghana’s Investment Promotion Centre laws bar foreigners from retail trade, the foreigners particularly, Nigerians insists the law goes against the ECOWAS protocols on free trade.
This had led to back and forth retail war among the two countries with 92 foreign-owned shops suspected to be owned by Nigerians closed down in Kumasi.
Nigeria, in a statement through its information ministry noted that Ghana has taken Nigeria for granted thereby making its citizens subjects of harassment and objects of ridicule, stressing, “this will no longer be tolerated under any guise.”
Meanwhile the statement urged Nigerians to remain law abiding despite their ordeal.
Source: GhanaFeed.com
