President Nana Akufo-Addo must quarantine himself upon arrival back home from his two-week trip abroad, financial analyst Sydney Casely-Hayford has suggested.

“I do want the president to be quarantined”, Mr Casely-Hayford told Accra-based Citi FM on Saturday, adding: “I think Nana can impose a self-quarantine; yes, he can stay at home, he can be protected and guarded with his staff and the business of the government can still carry on and by the time 21 days are over, he would have had enough rest and sleep and he would have come up with better new programmes and ideas for the country so we can move on”.

A day before, the Member of Parliament for the Kumbungu Constituency in the Northern Region, Ras Mubarak, wondered if Ghana’s health authorities would quarantine President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo after his return from Europe, as part of measures to prevent the introduction and spread of the deadly coronavirus into the country.

Nana Akufo-Addo has, in the past weeks, visited some European countries including Norway where there is a reported case of the Coronavirus.

Discussing ways to prevent the disease from entering the country on the back of recent reports that neighbouring Nigeria had reported its first case, Mr Mubarak told Parliament on Friday, 28 February 2020 that: “Mr Speaker, can we confirm whether upon arrival in the country from his European tour, His Excellency the President will be quarantined? And, Mr Speaker, I say so because the President of Mongolia has been quarantined for the 14-day mandatory period. And Mr Speaker, His Excellency the President has visited Norway, which has reported a case of coronavirus. It will be very helpful to know if His Excellency will be quarantined when he arrives in the country.”

In a response, Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, in jest, said if anyone should be quarantined, it should be Mr Mubarak because he had been coughing throughout the sitting.

“As to the request by the Hon. Mubarak that the President will have to be quarantined when he arrives, Mr Speaker, I want to believe that it was said in jest because if anybody needs to be quarantined, I believe we will have to start with Hon Ras Mubarak. He is occasionally coughing, so, we will have to interrogate and clinically see where the cough is coming from because it has been consistent,” Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said.

So far, there has been 85,721 case recorded with 2,933 deaths. The coronavirus COVID-19 has affected 61 countries and territories around the world and one international conveyance (the Diamond Princess cruise ship harbored in Yokohama, Japan).