Accra — Has Ghanas new president put his foot in it, less than a week after he was sworn into office? Judging from reaction back home, his first foreign sortie - a visit across the border to Togo at the weekend - may have been John Agyekum Kufuors first presidential blunder.
Ghanaians cannot stop talking about it and many are criticizing the move. The Togo trip is considered something of a fiasco and embarrassment and has become the talk of the town. Why? Because Kufuors trip, to the capital Lome, may have been intended as a neighbourly visit to President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, but the timing was sensitive and many say wrong, or misguided at the very least.
Saturday, 13 January 2001, the date of Kufuors now controversial visit, was not Togos national day or a celebration of the countrys independence in 1960. It was the anniversary of the 1963 coup detat - sub Saharan Africas first- that ended the life of the then Togolese president, Sylvanus Olympio. Within a year Eyadema came into power.
Many Ghanaians are wondering why their new president chose Saturday to return the courtesy call to Eyadema, one of four regional heads of states to attend the new Ghanaian leaders inauguration on 7 January.
Kufuors New Patriotic Party has been outspoken in its criticism of the former President Jerry Rawlings government, and National Democratic Congress party, for marking the anniversary of Rawlings first coup on 4 June 1979 and celebrating the second military takeover, two years later, each 31 December.
Eyadema, the continents longest-serving leader with a questionable human rights record, was something of a political pariah before he was forced, under great pressure in and outside Togo, to democratize in the early 1990s after seizing power in the 1963 coup.
Since the weekend, local radio stations phone lines in Accra have been jammed with callers, all giving their opinion on the Togo visit, the preferred topic of discussion aired on many programmes. Most are critical or puzzled or both, though a good number sympathise with Kufuors dilemma.
The critics say Kufuor's decision to observe Togo's armed forces day with Eyadema smacks of hypocrisy and are demanding an apology from Kufuor, arguing that he cannot stick by one principle at home, then go abroad to celebrate someone elses coup, albeit across the border.
The son of Togos first president, Gilchrist Olympio, lives in Ghana and is himself now an opposition leader in Togo. Olympio told one radio station that he was surprised Kufuors first visit abroad should be to a "political dinosaur" (Eyadema).
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The pro-Kufuor callers say he was only responding to an invititation from a neighbouring president to thank Eyadema and the people of Togo for their support.
Kufuors foreign minister designate, Hackman Owusu Agyeman, who has been nominated, but not yet vetted, was swift to defend his president, echoing the views of Ghanaians who feel the Togo trip was not a mistake. Elizabeth Ohene, President Kufuors spokesperson, who along with Hackman Owusu Agyema was on the Togo trip, also attempted to limit whatever damage the visit may have caused. But neithers intervention nor justifications have done much to quiet the row, though both Ohene and Owusu Agyeman have quoted Kufuor saying that peace in a turbulent region, and good relations with its neighbours, are essential for continued stability in Ghana.
The fact that Kufuor received one of Togos highest awards, the Great Cross of Mono from Eyadema, has fanned the flames of outrage and caused more offence, as has the news that the Togolese armed services were out in force on parade, while President Eyadema, a soldier-turned-constitutional leader, inspected.
Under Rawlings, relations between Ghana and Togo were frosty, with mutual accusations from Accra and Lome of each country harbouring the others dissidents and rebels. Lately, the situation has improved, but commentators say Eyadema will be relieved that Rawlings has now left the political scene and is no longer a potential thorn in Togos side.
Presidential staffers in Ghana are hoping that the visit to Togo will not leave a bitter taste and a costly political albatross weighing down Kufuors neck. But Ghanaians are already asking whether this first presidential faux pas will be a taste of things to come for foreign policy, or whether Ghanas new president is finding his way and will learn from an early lesson.
