That Was Then, Mr. Bagbin, This Is Now!

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

Garden City, New York


Nov. 25, 2014


E-mail: [email protected]


Someone should tell Mr. Alban Bagbin, the National Democratic Congress' parliamentary minority leader, that unconscionably attempting to sweep the Nayele Ametefe Cocaine Scandal under the proverbial rug, by playing up the Amoateng Heroin Bust at New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport, would not wash (See "If It Is Cocaine, Then It Is NPP - Bagbin Fumes" Peacefmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/26/14). Resurrecting the Amoateng Scandal would do nothing to erase the fact that the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has done nothing very meaningful and/or even constructive to best the admittedly blotchy drug-control record of the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party government. And this comes nearly a decade after the fact.


We need to also recall the fact that leading NDC figures like Mr. Bagbin had a field day lambasting then-President John Agyekum-Kufuor for cavalierly presiding over an inexcusable culture of wanton drug-trafficking, although it is an open secret that Mr. Kufuor inherited the drug menace from the self-righteous and faux-revolutionary strongman turned democratically elected leader, President Jerry John Rawlings.

We also know quite well that Mr. Rawlings has an unenviable track record of granting asylum to South American fugitive drug traffickers and warlords. As well, the founding-father of the National Democratic Congress has been known to strike backdoor deals with foreign governments in rescue of diplomatic operatives under his watch who got snagged by anti-drug-trafficking laws abroad. And, ironically, Mr. "House-Cleaning" would have Ghanaian scholars and political scientists laud him as the most honest and effective crime fighter in the country's postcolonial history.


For those of our readers who did not follow it, this was what Mr. Rawlings' court battle with Prof. Danso-Boafo was indisputably about. Having pontifically and self-righteously put themselves up as paragons of moral integrity on the Ghanaian political landscape, it is rather pathetic for key NDC players like Mr. Bagbin to suppose that they can readily get away with their glaringly apparent role in the Nayele Cocaine Scandal through flippant and nauseatingly lame press-conference denials.


In the twenty-first-century world of cyber-culture, Ghanaians have become too tech-savvy and media literate to be so readily hoodwinked by those who casually presume to lord it over them. Likewise, Ghanaians have become too politically astute and democratically oriented to be facilely intimidated into silence by the clinically certified bullies of the Rawlings-minted National Democratic Congress. Lugging up two bags of rice to mock up Nayelegate by Mr. Dominic Nitiwul, the New Patriotic Party's deputy minority leader, was absolutely the right thing to do, if also because Mr. Nitiwul sought to effectively drive home the inescapable gravity of drug-trafficking and the deleterious consequences that such antisocial behavior has for the global community of civilized and enlightened humans.


Obviously, this is not what powerful sponsors of Pharmaceutical Scam-Artists like Ms. Ametefe would have Ghanaians appreciate about the real political objectives and intentions of leaders like Messrs. Mahama and Bagbin. As of this writing, another equally outrageous cocaine bust of some Ghanaians had been reported at London's Heathrow Airport. This time the story, read to me by my 9-year-old son, a fourth-grader, entailed the tamping up of commercial-grade cocaine into plantain peels.


You bet, we intend to follow the trail of wherever the latest breaking news story leads us. Mr. Bagbin and his NDC associates can huff and puff all they want, we shall still do what we do best - dredge up the details of this story and systematically explain to our readers what it all means for the destiny and/or future development of our nation.