This happened after he was stripped of his Black Stars captaincy by Kwesi Appiah.

However, he rescinded his decision after President Akufo Addo spoke to him to change his mind.

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The 34-year-old forward's statement was issued barely 24 hours after Coach Kwesi Appiah released his provisional squad by head coach Kwasi Appiah, said that he would not be a member of Ghana's team for the 2019 AFCON, which takes place in Egypt between June 21 and July 19 .

The statement reads:

"Upon consultation with my family and team, and as an active footballer and captain of the national team, if the decision of the coach is to give captaincy of the tournament to another player while I am named in the team for the tournament, I wish to recuse myself from the tournament," said the player who plies his trade with Turkish topflight side, Kayserispor.

"I also wish to retire from the national team permanently; not pretending my presence would not fuel the purported undermining the country has seen under my captaincy".

"Through such periods, there were no times substantive captains were part of a team and had to surrender their captaincy to other players and served in different capacities”, he indicated.

He however made a u-turn after the president of the Republic of Ghana reached out to him.