Ghana’s deputy minister resigns over ethnocentric comments

Ghana’s Deputy Minister for Agriculture, William Quaitoo, has resigned from office following criticisms over ethnocentric comments he made against the people from the northern parts of the country.

The minister had in an interview with an Accra based radio station made remarks considered inflammatory and disrespectful to the people from the north.

“If anybody in the north says his farm was destroyed by armyworm, the person would have to come and prove it. As for our brothers in the north it is so difficult to deal with them. I lived there for 27 years. I speak Dagbani like a Dagomba and all that. They are very difficult people. Nobody can substantiate, we have no records of that. It is just a way of taking money from government, that’s what they do all the time,” the erstwhile deputy minister had said.

Quaitoo’s statement was followed by a barrage of criticisms and calls for his sack, which continued in spite of a public apology by the minister saying he never intended to denigrate the northerners, because he considered himself one of them. The presidency, in a statement last night, confirmed the minister’s resignation.

“The president of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, this evening accepted the resignation from office of the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, William Quaitoo, MP, which takes immediate effect. The President wished him the very best in his future endeavours,” it said.

The Majority Leader of Parliament, Haruna Idrissu, had earlier threatened to take stringent measures against Quaitoo, who is now the first political appointee in the AkufoAddo eight-month-old government to leave office.