We must not allow the politics of self-preservation to become part of national governance. Recent media publication on Kofi Boakye’s maneuvering to become a Member of Parliament, for Kumasi-Manhyia, is reminiscent of Andrei Lugovoi’s desperate attempt to enter into Russian politics to avoid criminal indictment and/or extradition to London.
While the present Ghanaian government is flooded with wretched comedians, the opposition is equally inundated with a bunch of noisy ducklings who have lost touch with true democracy and would sell their integrity to preserve their parliamentary privileges. I am yet to see any Ghanaian parliamentarian take the moral high ground to reprove the growing idiocy we see in our nation’s parliament. They won’t, because the free accommodation, allowances, and the per diem they enjoy far outweigh their interest in cultivating morality into national politics. In my judgment, our political leaders are not saints, but a subset of criminals draped in suits to hide their criminal dispositions. We have been fooled to believe in a heaven on earth, by promises of positive change, when social misery, undeniably, remains the same, if not worse.
I am, and will be, the first to admit, that as humans, we are all fallible. However, we can’t continue to attribute our imperfections to celestial determinisms. It would be absurd to link to Kofi Boakye’s association with the nation’s notorious drug lords with “Onyame nchicheye (sic).” Does the president and his advisors, for a minute, compute the harm cocaine is doing to our nation’s international image? Maybe, they can ask the Honourable Kenneth Dapaah to tell them about his near encounter with rectal water-boarding at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. In the case herein, the Kenya Immigration Authorities would have applied indigenous colonoscopy to assess the Honourable Minister’s bowels to check whether, or not, he was carrying an additional compartment containing a powdery substance. As a minister in the current administration, the Honourable Ken Dapaah is besmeared with the Eric Amoateng syndrome.
Does our president ever go to bed at night thinking about some of nation’s students who may not live to see tomorrow because of their grave addiction to cocaine? Does the president see a correlation between the failure of his government in creating economic opportunities and the how the preceding drives some of the nation’s impoverished students into becoming hirelings for the cocaine industry? In today’s Ghana, the nostrils of some of our nation’s students have become a testing laboratory for brain-fizzling cocaine. My sympathy goes to Ayita’s family, a brilliant and a promising student, who met his untimely death by snorting cocaine for the Accra New Town, Nima and Tudu cocaine entrepreneurs. This is the underbelly of our great democracy; a system of permissive governance where the nation’s indigenous narco-Al Capones shape policies and wine-and-dine the Kofi Boakyes.
We cannot ignore the nation’s cocaine scourge as an isolated incident. The White Poison of the Andes has contaminated our deep-seated values. It has, and continues to be a major source of revenue for the nation’s burgeoning criminal underworld who use of the threat of violence to silence the public against any co-operation with the police. Didn’t we see one of the sons of the Kofi Boakye narco-accomplices take to the airwaves to threaten the public of serious consequences should his father be convicted? Are we not aware of those who warned our journalists against making stingy publications about the godfathers behind the nation’s cocaine importation and distribution? Commonsense, at least, tells us that the late Ennin’s public execution by hideous hands was not a random act of violence, but a premeditated act to silence the truth.
The Kofi Boakye cocaine saga was a rotten fish that was eventually going to be washed ashore. It was all just a matter of time. How can an entire nation entrust a recidivist with a top position in law enforcement knowing that he was going to recidivate and bring the noble values of the institution into disrepute? During the peak of the cocaine scandal, I was mystified to see the nation’s ex-Inspector Generals of Police go to the Police Headquarters, in an attempt, to settle the matter behind closed doors. Wouldn’t Ata Ayi have cherished the same congenial offer had he been offered one; that he invites his victims to his house to plead for their forgiveness to stop criminal proceedings against him? The nation’s Police Service has become an “abusua kuo.” It continues to reinforce a culture of “see-no-evil” even when one exists. It suborns unruliness at all levels? The Kofi Boakyes in our nation’s Police Service are rogue cops whose criminality does not always go beyond the supervisory purview of the police administration. Not only do they flout the law in plainview, they enjoy the infamy that comes with it.
Recently, I met a gentleman at a friend’s place of work. In an open conversation, he candidly admitted that he was he was an ex-courier of cocaine and a liaison between a certain NACOBOD official and the nation’s cocaine dealers. According to this gentleman, the VIP Lounge at the Kotoka International Airport is the weakest link in our nation’s frontline security. It is used to shuttle the narcotic barons, in and out of the country, without detection. Through our conversation, I became privy to the name of this respected drug-fighting expert who would disclose the names of blacklisted narcotic magnates for a fee of US$1000-15000 per head. This official, I was told, advised the narco-barons, through his intermediary, to leave the country before a police swoop. Armed with information that the narco-moguls have left the country, the said official would then release their names to the CID and BNI Headquarters knowing fully well that the police would not be able to locate them.
What would make a respected public servant engage in such a risky game if I may ask babyishly? Most public servants, in today’s Ghana, would take a bribe from the nation’s cocaine entrepreneurs because they know that if they don’t, they would be bypassed and left out in “resource distribution.” Don’t we all need resources, in the form of foreign currency, to assert our place in the nation’s “property-owning” democracy?
Kofi Boakye’s “altered tapes speak volumes. They speak to a government that treats the growing cocaine culture as business as usual. They speak to a government that was silent on Amoateng’s arrest, and indictment, in the United States, thinking the stink would go away if little is said about Mr. Amoateng’s ordeal. They also speak to a society where morality is frowned on and human success measured on tangible acquisitions. They speak to a government that would protect a BNI officer, and Immigration Officials, who were arrested for aiding a Nigerian to move cocaine through the Kotoka International Airport but were never prosecuted. They speak volumes of a political culture, and government, that would summarily dismiss the Minister for National Security without an official explanation.
How can a senior police officer who “allegedly” took a US$200000 bribe claim that he wanted to use the money to bait an indicted narco-dealer who was already out of the country? How do you bait something that does not exist? How can a senior police officer who allegedly demanded that the seized cocaine be split into fifty-fifty, on a subsequent occasion, assert that he wanted to use part of the split cocaine as evidence? What happened to the other fifty if I may ask? How did Ms. Asibi, the girlfriend of the indicted cocaine baron-in-chief, become a pal to Mr. Awuni, the president’s spokesperson? Why would Mr. Awuni seek friendship with Ms. Asibi after the fact? Was he playing a role as a counselor to a woman in distress? Or, was he advancing an unsolicited friendship to tame a raging storm from busting its banks? I have many questions, which I am reserving my right to ask at an opportune time.
Our nation’s clergymen are part of the cocaine problem. Like some of our nation’s journalists, these clergymen fly on the tailcoats of our politicians for the green buck. I don’t want to sound condescending; a trait which is not part of my humble persona. However, I think the nation’s Reverend Doctors, Reverend Professors, Bishops, Reverend Generals, and Cardinals, are more preoccupied with fleecing their churches than taking on moral cause to save our nation’s vulnerable from falling through the crevice.
Cardinal Palmer Buckle, Archbishop Kwasi Sarpong, and other respected clergymen must gather the moral courage to sermonize the president to exercise his absolute prerogatives to stave off the flow of cocaine into our country. Like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, our nation’s clergymen must take to the podium to express their disapproval of a materialistic culture that is choking our spiritual values. Instead of officiating at expensive national ceremonies, where they waste their time praying for divine intervention, they should pray for enlightenment and social perfectibility. As men of God, they should draw our president’s attention to the long-term repercussions of having a narco-cop stand for political office. Jesus Christ would have done same. Wouldn’t he?
To my dearest countrymen, and women, let’s resist democratic tyranny by inspiring the public to vote against any politician with an Amoateng genetic narco-coding. We should shred the ballot papers bearing the face, and name, of a narco-cop who thinks that he can toy with our intelligence by shedding his narco-stained police attire for Giorgio Armani suits. Does it any sense to vote for a narco- politician who could potentially be recruited by a hostile foreign service to spy on the state, and our nation, as his way of saving himself from extradition to the West? Can the in-coming president imagine the discomfiture that would ensue should the Ghanaian president’s entourage be delayed at an international airport because the name of one of the nation’s parliamentarians appeared on a “no-fly” list because of his past involvement with cocaine moguls?
If our nation continues to elate itself on the nonsense that it is fed our by politicians, then we should be prepared to pay a very heavy price for not speaking out against a rogue-cop whose notoriety is sourced from inviting cocaine barons for a cocktail party at his official residence. What a messy system of government we call democracy. Did I hear them say “zero-tolerance?” I cringe. Mawu, Dzitato, Ne Ve Mia Duko Ghana Nu, Eye Woa Lebe Mi. Hope all is well. Good day and cheers.
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