The National Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Henry Nana Boakye, has criticised President John Dramani Mahama’s decision to accept West African deportees from the United States, describing it as “reckless” and a complete disregard for Ghana’s Constitution.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, speaking on Point of View with Bernard Avle, explained that the arrangement with the U.S. to receive some West African deportees is guided by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which he said does not require parliamentary ratification.
His clarification followed criticism from the Minority in Parliament, which accused the government of bypassing parliamentary approval in the decision to accept 14 deportees from the U.S. earlier this month.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Friday, September 19, 2025, Nana Boakye argued that the president’s decision to accept the detainees without parliamentary approval was “unconstitutional and illegal.”
He likened the move to the infamous “Gitmo 2” case of 2016, when the Supreme Court ruled that the Mahama administration acted illegally by resettling two Guantanamo Bay detainees in Ghana without Parliament’s approval under Article 75.
“You recall in 2016 myself, Madam Margaret Banful, with our lawyer Nana Agyei Baffour, we were the plaintiffs, and we went to court, the action to challenge the legality of the president, then had entered into a certain agreement with the USA to bring in two detainees, Gitmo 2, and the Supreme Court was very emphatic.
“The pronouncement was very clear. The Supreme Court declared the action of the then Mahama administration unconstitutional and illegal, so I am amazed and surprised that His Excellency, the president, is given another opportunity to be president again and is committing the same mistake he made the first time. This is a reckless and complete disregard for our Constitution,” he said.
Nana Boakye, also known as Nana B, announced plans to return to the Supreme Court over what he described as President Mahama’s “flagrant disregard” for Ghana’s Constitution in handling agreements with the United States on deportees.
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