• As Okudjeto, BNI strip him naked

In his bid to ridicule President John Evans Atta Mills regarding his unprecedented voluntary body search at the Kotoka International Airport on his way to the United Kingdom recently, New Patriotic Party’s propaganda chief, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr, has been exposed as having a very limited knowledge of Political Science.

“Anybody who says that every action that a President would take should be prescribed by law or policy has a limited understanding of Political Science,” a Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has said on Metro TV’s Good Morning where both men were panellists.

Mr Okudzeto was reacting to loud claims made severally earlier and reiterated on the show by the Managing Editor of the Crusading Guide that President Atta Mills had no basis in law or policy for subjecting himself to a body search at the Kotoka International Airport whilst embarking on his last trip to the United Kingdom.

Kweku Baako, who is also known in some circles as ‘Mr Documents’ described the exemplary conduct by the President as “empty symbolism,” claiming that the President’s conduct should have been prescribed by law or documented in a policy framework by the new NDC government in order to gain acceptance from the people of Ghana.

Mr Okudjeto described the document man’s assertion as strange since according to him, the President’s body search had served as a huge moral booster for “those small boys like us at the airport whose duty it is to carry out searches on people on their way in and out of the country.” He pointed out that President Atta Mills’ has once again demonstrated his government’s commitment to dealing decisively with the drug menace, emphasising that the President’s conduct has sent out a strong signal to the drug traffickers and general public that the era of government complicity in the drug trade is a thing of the past.

In the same vein, concerning disappearances of cocaine under the erstwhile NPP government, the ‘diabolical’ managing editor of the Crusading Guide and close confidant of former President Kufuor claimed that the phenomenon was not new. He stated categorically that some unspecified amount of cocaine disappeared from the custody of the security agencies including the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) in the nineties under the Rawlings-led NDC administration. The Catalyst checks from BNI and Police sources however reveal that this assertion by Mr. Baako is a blatant falsehood. His statement has been described as the figment of his own imagination. Our BNI source has challenged Kweku Baako to come forward with any evidence he has to that effect. Our checks showed that the issue of missing narcotic drugs from the custody of the law enforcement agencies raised its ugly head for the first time ever in the Kufour era. Clearly, the NPP propaganda chief once again was only engaged in pure Goebbelian propaganda in his usual bid to neutralise the unacceptable deeds of the Kufuor-led NPP government with regard to drug trafficking in the country. Meanwhile a security expert has told this paper that the biggest move by a government in dealing with the drug menace is the show of political will to nib the canker in the bud. According to him, it is not for nothing that cocaine is in short supply in the country currently. He attributed the positive development to the willingness and determination of the Atta Mills-led NDC government to decisively deal with the drug problem.

He was full of praise for President Atta Mills for showing that he will not condone the act of drug trafficking in the country. “If you have the President subjecting himself to body search on his way out of the country, it sends out a clear message that he will not tolerate drug trafficking during his tenure. That alone speaks volumes enough to make the drug barons slowdown the tempo of their clandestine moves.”

He said even though will be unwise to say that drug trafficking in Ghana could be brought down to zero level, the political will to fighting the underground business as has been demonstrated President Mills and his government so far is a key factor in curbing the menace to appreciable levels. Mr Kweku Baako claims that the NPP government did what Napoleon could not do in the fight against narcotics. But a quick recap of some strange happenings under the former government in that regard makes his assertion a mockery.

The past Kufuor-led NPP regime was noted for the vanishing of cocaine and other narcotic drugs under the nose of the security agencies. 77 parcels of cocaine on board MV Benjamin got missing after Ghana’s security forces got hold of the ship. Several quantities of cocaine including a large quantity equivalent to 50 bags of cement placed under a 24-hour guard with well functioning CCTV cameras on the 5th floor of the Police Headquarters vanished into thin air. In addition, several quantities of narcotics turned into other substances ‘in the full glare’ of the security services whilst in their custody.

The former NPP regime also superintended over the release of lawfully confiscated properties of guilty drug barons back to the drug lords. Benjillo as well as Raymond Amankwa, who until his recent arrest in Brazil with drugs was said to be a bankroller of NPP’s 2008 flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, benefited from this strange drug-fighting policy of the Kufuor-led NPP government. President Atta Mills’ voluntary body search has been acknowledged worldwide as a good omen for the fight against drugs by his government. A British official at the Operation West Bridge was reported by Joy FM as saying that the Atta Mills-led NDC government has shown more commitment to fighting drugs than its predecessor NPP government.

Perhaps, if NPP’s Eric Amoateng did not hide under the immunity of a diplomatic passport in the NPP regime to avoid a body and luggage search at the Kotoka International Airport, he would not have succeeded in severally trafficking heroin to the United States of America before being finally busted and put in jail to the embarrassment of Ghana.