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When I arrived at the office in the mid-morning of yesterday, he was waiting. According to the security guard, the visitor had arrived very early in the morning, wanting to see the Editor. The security officer had told him that I was not going to be at the office until about 11:00 a.m. and asked him to see my deputy, if he had a story to tell. The visitor, though, would have none of it. He was looking for the Editor, and was prepared to wait for as long as it would take for the Editor to report to work. I was turning at the parking lot, to put the old banger at rest, when I saw him. Frank Benneh was a high-flying diplomat, a first counselor at the Ghana Embassy in Bonn, West Germany, when he was arrested by the narcotic authorities in Deutschland. The story is told that drug control officers had put surveillance on the diplomatic bag of the Ghanaian mission for a long time, and found that the bag was being used to smuggle drugs from Latin America. The story is told that he was being tried in Germany, when the Government of Ghana intervened and got him released and sent to Ghana, where the authorities had promised to put him on trial. When he arrived in Accra, Benneh was arraigned before an Accra High Court, but the trial was aborted when he started dropping the names of top officials in the regime. The trail was adjourned sine die. For nearly 20 years now, the state has not been interested in the proceedings, and Mr. Benneh has been left loose. For a while, he was a rich source of juicy news for the newspapers, which wrote stories on his dealings involving some embassy officials in the Ghana mission in a South American country, and leading officials of the administration of the Provisional National Defence Council and its successor regime, the National Democratic Congress. It is obvious that drugs have eaten away Mr. Benneh�s personality, and now he looks like a skeleton on wheels. His once flashy demeanour has been replaced by a shabby body and unkempt hair, making him look like an inmate who has just escaped from a mental home. His appearance yesterday immediately drew my attention to current dealings in the drug underworld that threaten to make Ghana a haven for the illicit trade. On Wednesday and Thursday, private newspapers published details about the owner of a private security firm, contracted by the state to provide security at the Kotoka International Airport, who has been busted in the United States. He is accused for aiding the smuggling of cocaine and other dangerous drugs to the United States of America. According to various accounts, Solomon Adelaquaye owns Sohin Security, which was contracted last year, at the behest of National Security Co-Ordinator, Lt-Colonel Larry Gbevlo-Lartey (rtd), to beef up security at the nation�s leading port of entry and departure � the Kotoka International Airport in Accra. Rather than secure this nation against narcotic dealings, Mr. Adelaquaye rather found his new role the greatest opportunity to join the rich of society overnight. He was arrested in New York last month and charged, together with Colombian Samuel Antonio Pinedo-Rueda and two Nigerians, Frank Muodum and Celestian Ofor Orjinweke, as part of a major drug-trafficking syndicate landing hard drugs in the United States. On Monday, the Government of Ghana announced the cancellation of the contract of Adelaquaye�s company. One interesting thing about this issue is that Mr. Adelaquaye is a known financier of the ruling party, the National Democratic Congress. If the financier of the party is dealing in drugs, what is the guarantee that some of the money he has been paying for the election of officers of the party, including the President of the Republic of Ghana, could not have been drug money? This matter is more serious than the way the state is treating it. We are told that Mr. Adelaquaye was trapped by the Federal narcotic authorities of the United States, which offered money and succeeded in getting the owner of the private security firm at the airport to get his men at the airport to cross the security barrier at the Kotoka International Airport with drugs on a number of occasions. In effect, all it took for drugs to by-pass security at the airport was to bribe the very people in charge of security. What did the security boss know about Mr. Adelaquaye and his company before recommending both to be involved in securing our leading airport from drug barons? In any other society, Lt-Col. Gbevlo-Lartey would have resigned over this scandal. So far, he has not given any indication that he would do so. Rather, ugly noises are coming out that state security co-operated with their American counterparts to get Mr. Adelaquaye nabbed. For me, that is not the issue. If Gbevlo-Lartey and other security capos were aware of the dealings of the boss of the company he himself recommended to be in charge of security at the airport, then what prevented Gbevlo and his men from arresting him and tearing his contract apart earlier? Since he would not resign, it is the duty of the President who appointed Lt-Col. Gbevlo-Lartey to show him the door. This country should cultivate the culture of ensuring that officials given assignments are responsible for their actions and inactions. Another person who should be pushed out of his position is Mr. Yaw Akrasi Sarpong, Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board. In spite of ugly noises about his efforts to make this nation drug-free, the leadership of Akrasi Sarpong has rather worsened the plight of this nation as a transit quarters for the narcotic trade. On Tuesday, August 23, 2011, 15 officers of NACOB were arrested within a period of two weeks on drug-related offences. They were alleged to have connived with suspected drug peddlers at the Kotoka International Airport to allow couriers to export various drugs. Around the same time, someone, described by anti-drug officers in Britain as the mastermind of an international drug gang � a Ghanaian identified as Francis Kwame Asante, alias Wofa, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London with 1.5 tonnes of cannabis and 7.5 kilograms of cocaine. The street value was of the cannabis was estimated at �4.3 million. The next day, cocaine from Ghana, with a street value of �750,000, was also seized at Heathrow. British narcotic authorities drew a link between the two seizures. In London, a group, calling itself Ghanaians Abroad Against Corruption, issued a statement calling on the deceased President John Evans Atta Mills to sack Mr. Akrasi Sarpong. �Once again,� stated the group, �our public institutions have been exposed to corruption, weak leadership and greed. The head of NACOB, Yaw Akrasi Sarpong, has serious questions to answer, and, in our opinion, is currently unfit to hold his position and lead the onslaught against drug trafficking and drug barons.� �It is mind-boggling that in Akrasi-Sarpong�s own backyard, cocaine smuggling is going on. How many cases does it take for this man to resign? How many people do you need to change a dead bulb?� the group queried. The group in London said: �There seems to be more than what Ghanaians have been told about the circumstances under which a haul of cannabis, with a street value of �4.3 million, left the Kotoka International Airport.� On Joy FM, Mr. Sarpong appeared to have been shaken by the seizures of drugs in Britain originating from Ghana. Taking a cue from the concerned Ghanaians, he hinted of resigning. Men and systems he had put in place, he complained, had failed him. �Their actions marred the image of NACOB,� he stressed. Taking the blame for lapses which led to the seizure of huge quantities of marijuana and cocaine from Ghana at Heathrow on succession, Mr. Akrasi Sarpong said he was considering resigning, because his men had failed him, and their actions had marred the image of NACOB. �It�s a big dent, and I take personal responsibility. Who said I am not thinking about it (resignation?). We are going to strengthen things.� However, after using state resources to undertake a cozy trip to London, nothing has been heard of his resignation. Meanwhile, the problem has become persistent and even worsened. I do not hesitate in recommending him to President Mahama for the sack. It is in the interest of the President to get rid of these key men in his security outfit. Jubilee House would do well to redeem part of the sinking Presidential image, by sacking Mr. Yaw Akrasi Sarpong and National Security capo Lt-Col. Gbevlo-Lartey (rtd).