What A Country!

The media was yesterday awash with a major cannabis haul at Heathrow Airport, narcotic substance which originated from Kotoka International Airport, regrettably. A British official�s description of the haul is worrying, having regarded the over four million-pound seizure as of industrial scale, their biggest seizure in several years at Heathrow. There could not have been a worse testimonial for the country. The haul has expectedly attracted the attention of Parliament and a subsequent demand that the Interior Minister appear before it to be grilled over the anomaly. The development is coming on the heels of an appalling narcotic report card posted by the immediate past American envoy to Ghana. We are aware about how other local arrests have been hushed deliberately to avoid the matter getting to the media and presenting a picture of the real drug situation in the country. It is amazing and unacceptable that government would be handling such a serious subject in this manner, or better put, politicizing it when in reality, many more Ghanaians are now users of the narcotic substance than in previous years. The concern of Parliament is understandable, given the quantity of the substance and the impression it has created about the effectiveness or otherwise of the security agencies in policing narcotic smuggling in the country. The smuggling of narcotic substances from and to the country was one of the early favourites of NDC propagandists. They loved accusing the previous administration of not tackling the issue adequately and even lashing some individuals of being party to narcotic smuggling, although the charges turned out to be baseless. Little wonder the subject soon became over-flogged, compelling the propagandists to drop it as a favourite tool. With a number of arrests made, local and international, and attributable to Ghanaian smugglers under the NDC regime, the issue of deliberate accusation to give the previous regime a bad name and hang it has become even clearer. We are aware about the various interventions under the previous political regime in the country to stem the tide of narcotic smuggling and how these led to many arrests. These, for political expedience, have been ignored by propagandists to advance their cause. When serious matters which have the propensity to do and undo our image as a country are not spared the diabolic partisan politics in the country, we end up in the sort of mess confronting us now in the British media and elsewhere. What a country!