Asiedu-Nketia, Amoateng Is Your Neighbor!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

Nov. 27, 2014

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia ought not to fool himself into presuming Ghanaians to be woefully bereft of any long-term memory faculties. The fact of the matter is that before there was the Eric Amoateng cocaine scandal, there was the Benneh Coverup in which some movers and shakers of the Rawlings-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) used their great influences in government to rescue a party drug courier suavely syled by these NDC bigwigs as a diplomat in Ghana's embassy in Germany.

We cannot also have so soon forgotten the criminal use of the Ghana Embassy building in Tokyo, Japan, to support some local gambling racketeers. Then also, we haven't forgotten the collusion of NDC stalwarts like Mr. Rojo "The Commie-Red" Mettle-Nunoo with Colombian cocaine kingpin fugitives to make Ghana the most significant drug-trafficking and transshipment hub in the West African sub-region.

And so yes, President John Agyekum-Kufuor may have had a hard time stemming the epic tide of illegal drug-trafficking in and outside the country, but it cannot be convincingly disputed that it was the leaders of the Narcotics Distributors' Congress, officially known as the National Democratic Congress, that actually invented and "democratize" drug-trafficking as an informal trade in the country. More to the point, Chairman Jerry John Rawlings is the undisputed Father of Drug-Trafficking in Fourth-Republican Ghana.

We will come to it a bit later, but it bears advising the Mosquito General to pay sedulous attention to what the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr. Jon Benjamin, has been saying about the vanguard role being shamelessly played by the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress to facilitate the massive trafficking of illegal drugs into the European underground drug market. The recent Heathrow Airport arrest of Ms. Nayele Ametefe, with 12.5 kgs of commercial-grade cocaine, is only a tip of the iceberg. There is more yet to come. Already, another "Plantain-Peel Cocaine Courier" has reportedly been nabbed at Heathrow, well before the formal arraignment of Ms. Ametefe before a London criminal court.

Well, since NDC "cokeheads" like the Mosquito General are loathed to be aptly tagged as drug dealers, we have decided to call them "The Nayele-Certified Pharmacists." At least the latter designation carries some semblance of decency, although I am promptly forced to profusely apologize to the largely decent, patriotic and hardworking members of the Ghana Pharmaceutical Association (GPA). Or are they called the Ghana Society of Pharmacists (GSP)?

We also need to underscore the fact of its not being wholly accidental that the convicted New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Nkoranza-North Constituency, Mr. Eric Amoateng, is neighbors with Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, that is, both men are from the same Brong-Ahafo Region. And so was Mr. Benneh who was arrested in Germany, under the pontifical and self-righteous watch of Mr. House-Cleaning, Chairman Jerry John Rawlings. And so, if I may be permitted to politely ask the following question: Is it not quite possible that Mr. Amoateng might have learned the trade which he performed so scandalously from his neighboring movers and shakers of the National Democratic Congress? I am just curious.

Mr. Asiedu-Nketia may also be quite right to observe that President John Agyekum-Kufuor, during his watch, had appointed many of the Kotoka International Airport security personnel. But what is perfectly beyond dispute is the fact that the head of security at the KIA is a Mahama appointee and not a mere carryover from the Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party. Then also, the flagrant decision to permit Ms. Ametefe the use of the Presidential Lounge at the KIA, even when the convicted 32-year-old narcotic contraband courier was not traveling on a Ghanaian passport, let alone a diplomatic one, was very likely taken by Mahama-appointed KIA staff.

We also cannot take the NDC General-Secretary seriously, when Mr. Asiedu-Nketia fumes as follows: "I don't understand the NPP because the person arrested is not an NDC member; so why drag the party and the government into this?" Well, the truth of the matter is that we don't know yet whether Ms. Ametefe was a card-carrying member of the NDC or a cocaine-carrying one. Besides, shortly after Ms. Ametefe's Heathrow Airport arrest, the Ghana High Commissioner to the UK, Mr. Victor Smith, issued a statement vehemently denying the bona fide Ghanaian identity of the criminal suspect, who is also widely known to possess an Austrian passport and citizenship.

Well, General Mosquito, it is not true that "Ghanaians cannot be fooled by this [Nayelegate Scandal] because they are wiser and more discerning than the NPP think[sic]." Actually, you and your cohorts of bullies, scam-artists, hypocrites and pretenders have been fooling Ghanaians for more than three decades now. But, of course, not this time around, sorry to say.

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*Okoampa-Ahoofe is author of Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana (iUniverse.com, 2005).