The Minority Caucus on the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament has accused the government of secretly smuggling deportees from the United States into Ghana in breach of the 1992 Constitution.
Ranking Member Samuel Abu Jinapor warned that the Ghana-US deportee arrangement undermines Ghana’s sovereignty, threatens national security, and damages the country’s reputation abroad.
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“We reiterate our call on the Government to suspend, with immediate effect, the unconstitutional implementation of this agreement until Parliament has duly exercised its constitutional mandate to ratify same,” Jinapor declared.
At a press conference on Wednesday, the Minority insists that Article 75 of the Constitution clearly requires all international agreements to be ratified by Parliament. Jinapor reminded the government of Supreme Court rulings—including the landmark Banful v. Attorney-General case—that leave no room for ambiguity.
“The attempts by the Minister to downplay this agreement in the face of this clear provision of the Constitution are very disturbing,” he said, describing the Foreign Minister’s claim that the deal was merely a Memorandum of Understanding as a dangerous distortion.
According to the Minority, some of the deportees are already being held in detention centres in Ghana and have initiated legal action against the state over violations of their fundamental human rights. Even more alarming, Jinapor revealed, is that some forty more are expected to be flown into the country soon.
The group accused the government of repeating the same constitutional violations committed in 2016 with the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees.
“It is, therefore, surprising that the current Government, which supervised these unconstitutional acts pronounced upon by the Supreme Court, would once again enter into a similar agreement with the same United States,” Jinapor said.
The Minority warned that Ghana risks being seen as complicit in U.S. immigration enforcement policies, which have been widely condemned as harsh and discriminatory.