AT LONG last the battle has ended and Ghana’s President, John Agyekum Kufuor has thrown in the towel on the cocaine scandal saga.

This is a perfect maturity the President has displayed as per the recent boom speech he made in connection with the cocaine issue that has engulfed the entire nation.

All Ghanaians should applaud the back-tracking of the President, calling for a permanent cessation of verbal hostilities between his party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Party (NDC) and it shows that even a sitting President knows his limits.

The President’s u-turn, also debunks the assertion or notion that the cocaine issue is being politicised. The Chronicle is the first print media to caution the President to make himself anonymous in the cocaine palaver. The advice was not taken, making the President to go into another tirade, which was more dangerous to the security of the nation.

But the Catholicism in the President opened his eyes and he threw in the towel to tell all Ghanaians that after listening keenly to the various concerns and debates over the ranging cocaine scandal, which of course is under investigation by the Georgina Woode Committee, has realised the need to call for an armistice between both major parties in the country – NPP and NDC – to allow the Woode Committee to unravel the mystery surrounding the various cocaine scandals bedeviling the country over the past couple of months.

This, according to The Chronicle, is the right spirit and the President should be given a 100 per cent plus for it. But his Spokesman, Mr. Andrew Awuni has a long way to go to know what an effective public relations and damage control is all about. For at his interaction with the press to relay the President’s message to the nation, Mr. Awuni missed the opportunity to effectively extricate the President from his boom cocaine speech.

His presentations of the President’s views were hollow and still vindictive. He sees nothing wrong of what the President said and the havoc such a statement from the President had caused the nation and the world at large.

This paper, all along, has been saying that the President was wrong in opening his mouth too wide on the cocaine issue and instead of cooling tempers as per instructions from the President, Mr. Awuni chose to do his own “cocainetricks.” Mr. Awuni should realise that the seat of the Presidency is not a plaything to juggle with presidential instructions with political emotions. This paper thinks he should have by now learnt certain lessons from his predecessor, Mr. Kobina Agyepong to perform well to safeguard the interest of the presidency.

His attacks on civil societies for not commenting on the outburst of Rojo Mettle-Nunoo, of Venezuelan drugs and barons into the country, is just too much below the belt It is said that silence means consent and if the President’s remarks were in bad taste, no one, not even the civil societies, would defend the President, so he should know that.

As for the Member of Parliament for Assin North, Hon. Ken Agyapong’s outburst of calling for the arrest of Rojo and justifying the President’s speech thereby inflaming a passion for political confrontation in the country, should be a thing for the dustbin. Now that the President himself has “Mea Culpa” and said he had taken particular notice of the various concerns of civil society by thanking all Ghanaians for having the confidence to express themselves without any fear whatsoever, Mr. Awuni and the likes of Hon. Agyapong and the Kumasi Patriotic Youth should let us have the peace for the Woode Committee to carry on with her ministerial responsibilities.

The Chronicle is happy that the President has listened to its own voice to zip his mouth for the Woode Committee to have that free hand to operate.

Ghanaians are not interested in whether it is this or that party that opened the cocaine gateway. What the suffering populace of this state known as Ghana want the authorities to do is to try and erase and clear the tag of Ghana being a cocaine destination hub from the geography book of the comity of nations.

Yes, the President erred and his pillow had talked to him. We would not accept ‘backbenchers’ to once more stoke the fire, which this paper has been trying to extinguish.

We on this paper congratulate the President for exhibiting his presidential maturity and fatherly spirit to calm down the nerves that have engulfed the country these few weeks and call on all Ghanaians therefore, to support the Woode Committee in her work during this trying moment of pain facing the country.