Akufo-Addo accuses Burkina Faso of paying Russian mercenaries with mine; urges US to intervene

President Nana Akufo-Addo has accused the government of neighbouring Burkina Faso of handing over control of a mine in that country to Russian mercenaries.

According to him, the move is payment for the Russians to help fight an insurgency in their country.

President Akufo-Addo, who is in Washington for the US-Africa Leaders Summit, urged the United States to support West Africa to weed out terrorism and extremism, which is undermining the peace and stability in the region

At a bilateral meeting with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the President stressed that the rising phenomenon of terrorism in West Africa demanded the United States worked closely with the region.

Explaining further, the president said the uninterrupted escalation and spread of violent events in West Africa were posing a direct threat to the peace, stability and democratic gains made by Ghana and several other states in the region.

Throwing more light on the location of the mine, the president said the mine is near Ghana’s northern border with Burkina Faso and is being run by Wagner Group as pay for work done in that country.

“To have them operating in the northern part of Ghana is particularly distressing for us in Ghana. We have been very vocal and upfront about condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and therefore to have this group at our borders is a matter of considerable disquiet and concern for us.”

“It is especially important that ECOWAS and the West African area remain a democratic space, and that is the reason for the decisions we took over the coup d’états in Burkina Faso, in Mali and in Guinea. ECOWAS has been very consistent in refusing to deal with these governments because of their undemocratic nature of ascension to power,” he stated.

The Wagner Group is a mercenary outfit run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added that Ghana’s criticism of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine made his country particularly concerned about the Wagner Group’s presence.