Hey, Victor Smith, Where Is This Selective Pan-Africanism Coming From?
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Nov. 18, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]
I have seen pictures of Ms. Nayele Ametefe (aka Ruby Adu-Gyamfi), and the woman looks perfectly Ghanaian and West African to me; and so it is not clear precisely what he means when Mr. Victor Smith, Ghana's High Commissioner to Britain, says that his office has yet to ascertain the identity of the woman who was recently arrested at London's Heathrow Airport with 12.5 kgs of the narcotic contraband commonly known as cocaine (See "We're Yet to Confirm Nationality of Busted Cocaine Lady" Peacefmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/18/14).
Well, true, Nayele Ametefe's possession of two different passports with two different nationalities, namely, Austrian and Ghanaian, does raise a little doubt, but the fact that she departed from Ghana's Kotoka International Airport (KIA) clearly means that the alleged criminal suspect did not accidentally come by her Ghanaian passport. Mr. Smith, rather lamely, claims that many West Africans of non-Ghanaian nationality have been known to travel regularly on Ghanaian passports.
The unmistakable implication here is that the Mahama-appointed Director of Ghana's Passport Office is in the routine habit of issuing Ghanaian passports to just about anybody who applies for the same, without any background checks whatsoever. If this is the case, then it goes without saying that Ghanaian passports are as good as worthless. But even more significantly, it points to a grievos lack of vigilance and flagrant security lax at both the Passport Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And Ms. Hannah Tetteh, Ghana's Minister for Foreign Affairs, may have some explaining to do before the global community.
Now, as to whether Ms. Nayele Ametefe possesses a Ghanaian diplomatic passport or not is decidedly beside the point. What concerned Ghanaian citizens and observers want to know is whether, indeed, the busted cocaine courier exited KIA through the VIP Lounge. And if so, who gave her the permission to do so? It is also rather pathetic for Mr. Smith, who is a key player in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), which has been vigorously pushing for the political unification of the ECOWAS ZONE, to be abruptly beating a retreat, now that the nationality of a cocaine-carrying, Ghanaian-passport holding criminal suspect has come under the lenses of international scrutiny.
And this mischievous attempt by the Mahama government to disown Ms. Ametefe is both rascally and criminally scandalous, if also inescapably ironic, because President John Dramani Mahama is also the current chairman of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States). In other words, what Mr. Smith clearly seems to be saying is that President Mahama's vigorous camapign for ONE WEST AFRICAN NATIONALITY and ONE ECOWAS CITIZENSHIP and PASSPORT is all a hoax and a facade.
Mr. Smith also says that he has dispatched two of his high commission officials to accompany "the British Police to interrogate [Ms. Ametefe] and come out with the whole truth about her true identity, because the speculations are too much." Actually, Mr. Mahama's London Pointman could have done better, had he also invited a couple of independent-minded Ghanaian journalists to accompany his officers and Scotland Yard.
In the end, though, the question of whether Ms. Ametefe has close links with or is related to any high-ranking officials in the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress is far less important, than the fact of Ms. Ametefe's apparent ability to outwit the entire security system at Ghana's oldest and sole international airport, by being so easily and suavely able to ship out the whopping 12.5 kgs of commercial-grade cocaine, for which she was so easily and readily arrested at London's Heathrow Airport. There is, of course, no smoke without fire.