Editorial: The Wind Of Crime Is Blowing Dangerously

The country woke up last Friday to news of cocaine smuggling involving two women- one Ghanaian and the other a Togolese. This came days after popular musician, Dasebre Gyemerah was arrested in London for allegedly carrying a quantity of cocaine estimated at £100,000.

Ghana has been engrossed in some bad news lately about drug seizures and subsequent disappearances from the hands of the very officials tasked with policing them . To put it bluntly, the extent to which the country’s name is being dragged in the mud due to the activities of drug traffickers and internet fraudsters should be a source of concern to all well meaning Ghanaians.

The blame should be traced to the door steps of government agencies responsible for issuing travel documents and checking the borders of the country. It is no more a secret that all kinds of shady characters easily acquire the Ghanaian passport even using the names and pictures of the president and vice president of the country, without anybody raising eye brows.

Ghanaian newspapers are now full of news about tricksters, mostly foreigners defrauding unsuspecting people of thousands of dollars through the internet. To add to that ,the poor policing of our borders is the major reason our airport has been downgraded from category one to category two. The latest cases of drug trafficking coming on the heels of the Black Stars’ good performance at world cup, which has earned Ghana some international respect, is quite disturbing. Frankly speaking, the crime rate is getting out of control. As this newspaper went to bed last Friday, there was disturbing news that a man believed to be a foreigner had slit the throats of three people at the King David Hotel at Kokomlemle, near Kwame Nkrumah Circle. This raises serious questions on the role of foreign elements in fuelling crime in the country. No doubt, many non-Ghanaians, perhaps, with the connivance of Ghanaians are taking advantage of the relative peace in the country to strike fear in the populace.

The mishap that was wreaked at the King David Hotel together with the increasing cases of armed robbery are a foretaste of things to come, if recent hints of a possible infiltration of foreign elements into the country are to be taken seriously.

This calls for a coordinated approach by all state security agencies to stem the tide of crime in the country. Specifically, the newly created Ministry of National Security should broaden its operations to include monitoring and combating other crimes that may not be sophisticated, but have the capacity to affect the stability of the country in the long run.