What A Spectacular Coincidence, Mr. President!

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

Garden City, New York

Nov. 27, 2014

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

They may not like this, but their lies are going so way overboard that one begins to wonder whether the "Nayele-Certified Pharmacists" can really draw any distinction between lies and unalloyed truths. For instance, asked why he decided to dissolve NACOB (Narcotics Control Board), President John Dramani Mahama was widely reported to have responded that the operational term of the illegal drug-policing organization had effectively elapsed (See "Nayele's Cocaine Scandal Is A Lesson Well Learnt - Mahama" MyJoyOnline.com 11/27/14).

And so the obvious implication here seems to be that the Nayele Cocaine Scandal simply coincided with the pre-scheduled dissolution of NACOB. This is what skeptics aptly describe as an accident according to plan. Anyway, on her first appearance before a Crown criminal court judge in Metropolitan London, Ms. Nayele Ametefe, dubbed the Modern Cleopatra of Drug-Trafficking by some media operatives, was reported to have told the judge that she wanted the sentencing phase of her trial to be expedited. This obviously means that there well may be no trial in the traditional sense of the term. A bench trial, now, maybe?

Whatever the case may be, this incident is highly likely to become an indelible blot on the conscience of many a forward-looking and patriotic Ghanaian citizen, resident both at home and abroad, in this generation. We also suspect that Ms. Ametefe might have decided to forego any lengthy trial because she does not want to rat on any of the hardcore barons of her evidently high-powered and extensive network of narcotic contraband couriers and their kingpins.

This obviously means that it is highly unlikely that the criminal network of which she was only the most notorious front-woman is apt to be readily ferreted out and promptly and effectively liquidated. And so unless tough measures are taken at both the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) and the country's entire security system, one can only expect a relapse into a business-as-usual climate and culture very soon.

On quite a personal level, Ms. Ametefe, in passionately demanding a speedy sentencing process, may actually be expecting a lightning-span sentencing so that she may quickly return to the public domain and continue with the criminal activities that funded her storied lavish lifestyle. As of this writing, the 32-year-old cocaine-trafficking baroness was widely reported to be the owner of several landed and real-estate properties in both Ghana and Nigeria.

But that this infamous narcotic-contraband baroness does not appear to have learned any meaningful lessons from her previous 3-year jail term in the Netherlands, ought to critically inform the sentencing guidelines of Ms. Ametefe's new British jailer. Mr. Mahama is, however, dead-on-target when the Ghanaian leader observes that his country cannot go at it alone, and that "Ghana needs to collaborate with other international crime-fighting agencies to curb this canker."

The problem here, though, at least according to Mr. Jon Benjamin, the British High Commissioner to Ghana, is that President Mahama has yet to convincingly demonstrate that he has what it takes to significantly stem the massive tide of drug-trafficking in the country. Mr. Benjamin believes that some security agents in Ghana may actually be actively facilitating the drug-traffic out of the country. In other words, in the studied books of High Commissioner Benjamin, the credibility of President Mahama may not really be worth the Ghanaian leader's moral grandstanding and pontifical pronouncements.

This, of course, is another diplomatic way of saying that the former Rawlings communications minister is blowing hot air. It has also not helped matters that several Mahama cabinet appointees have been bickering with the Brits over the question of whether Ms. Ametefe had traveled to London on a Ghanaian diplomatic passport. That Ms. Ametefe and her alleged two accomplices have been confirmed to have used the VIP Lounge at the Kotoka International Airport on their way to London, seriously undermines the credibility of the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress.

_______________________________________________________________