Claim: President Akufo-Addo has asked the US to invade Burkina Faso over the presence of Wagner forces, a viral tweet has suggested.
Verdict: Misleading! Although President Akufo-Addo expressed misgivings about insurgency and the presence of the Wagner group in Burkina Faso, he did not call on the US to invade.
Full Text
A viral tweet claims that President Akufo-Addo, in a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and other officials while he was chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), urged the US to invade Burkina Faso, Ghana’s northern neighbour, over the presence of the private Russian military company Wagner.
The claim, backed by a video of a meeting between President Akufo-Addo and top US government officials, has since reached over 23,000 people.
In the last week, there has been a trend of negative sentiments against President Akufo-Addo on X (formerly Twitter). Most of the tweets, such as this and that, have described him as a “Western puppet.”
Given the diplomatic implication of this video, DUBAWA decided to investigate.
Verification
The video reference used to make the claim was from December 14, 2022, when President Akufo-Addo met US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and other US state officials on the sidelines of the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington, DC.
In the 5 minutes long video, President Akufo-Addo is heard referencing earlier conversations about insurgencies on the continent because he is going ahead to express his discomfort with terrorism in Burkina Faso along Ghana’s northern borders.
Below is a full transcript of what he said:
Today, Russian mercenaries are on our northern border. Burkina Faso has now entered into an arrangement to go along with Mali in employing the Wagner forces there. I believe a mine in southern Burkina has been allocated to them as a form of payment for their services. Prime Minister of Burkina Faso in the last 10 days, has been in Moscow, and to have them operating on our northern border is particularly distressing for us in Ghana. Apart from not accepting the idea of great powers once again making Africa their theatre of operation, we have a particular position that you know about over the Ukraine war, where we have been very vocal and upfront about condemning the invasion by Russia and, therefore to now have this group on our border is a matter of some considerable disquiet and concern for us. We would really like to have a privileged opportunity to talk about these implications and what we believe ought to be the case.
This is what took place during the discussion with the congress yesterday, which I found very fruitful. And we would like [that] the themes of that discussion, which should be the themes that we should continue to address. To what extent can we have you as a partner in confronting these threats? It is very important that ECOWAS and the West African area remain a democratic space. There is a reason for the actions taken over the coup d’états in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea, and ECOWAS has been very consistent in refusing to deal with these governments because of the undemocratic nature of their ascension to power.
The commitment to democratic values and institutions is a high priority for our states. We in Ghana have been through all kinds of arrangements. In past governance arrangements, one-party states, and all kinds of experiments have taken place, and our people are now very clear in their minds. And our people are not very clear in their minds. They want to go down the avenue for democratic engagement, and that is why the last 30 years of the fourth republic have been the most stable in our country’s history. We want to do everything to preserve that, but there are enemies of democracy who are working hard in West Africa today, and therefore, it is important that we bring that matter to your notice and see to what extent we can engage you as a reliable partner in the pushback of those forces.
There are other areas, of course, of great significance too, such as cooperation for economic growth and development and for making prosperity for our people, which is to some extent part and parcel of this same fight. If the young people have things to do, they are not going to be recruits for terrorist forces, so all of that is part and parcel, but specifically, what we can do about the terrorist threat in West Africa is now the major security concern of all our states, especially the coastal states. Up till now, the last six months have been relatively free of these threats, but now on all our common borders, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire are these forces that are operating there. We have to find a way to be able to respond and respond effectively to protect our populations.”
An analysis of the transcript of President Akufo-Addo’s discussion with US officials did not show him calling on the US to invade Burkina Faso. From the transcript, it is clear that President Akufo-Addo expressed dissatisfaction with incidents of terrorism, the presence of Wagner in some West African countries, and the spate of military coup d’états in West Africa and asked for US support to tackle such incidents. Nowhere within the clip did he urge the US to invade Burkina Faso.
Conclusion
Based on the video transcript, DUBAWA concludes that President Akufo-Addo did not ask the US to invade Burkina Faso over the presence of Wagner forces of insurgency in the country.