General News of Monday, 3 June 2019

Source: mynewsgh.com

I attempted suicide twice when I went broke – Former BBC journalist

Paa Joe Odonkor Paa Joe Odonkor

A Former Ghanaian Journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and ex-drug baron, Paa Joe Odonkor has revealed that he attempted suicide on two occasions because he could not stand being humiliated by society after losing all his monies to drugs.

According to him, he once drove a car to hit a big tree at Asylum down but he did not die and at one point too he took in 20 tablets of Valium (10 mg) but woke up earlier than his usual time.

Mr Odonkor indicated that enthusiastic and healthy rich people later in life appear like HIV/AIDs patients because of their addiction to drugs.

The ex-drug addict recounted that he sold his properties worth millions of cedis because of drugs and has now turned into a pauper with tattered clothes.

He indicated that he couldn’t afford the luxurious lifestyle he was enjoying during his 26 years of sniffing cocaine and confined himself to his room.

The once fabulously rich man explained that people he assisted to travel including women all despised him anytime he tries to get closer to them.

Paa Joe Odonkor said people only pretended to love him because of his money but vanished when he became broke.

According to him, not only did society despised him but the Church also did saying the worst thing that can happen to anyone is when he/she is hooked onto drugs.

In an interview with SVTV sighted by MyNewsGh.com, he recounted, ’I wanted to be fabulously rich and I got it but at the end of the day you become so humiliated you want to kill yourself. I tried killing myself twice it didn’t work…I took Valium 20 tablets and it didn’t work that day I woke up earlier than I normally get out of bed…I once went to church and I was humiliated, when you are hooked onto drugs and you don’t don’t manage it well and you get old you look like an HIV/AIDs patient. You become a slave to drugs, people will despise you, your family will get humiliated, drugs will make you mad’.

He narrated that even when he stopped sniffing cocaine, people still despised him and spoke negatively about him adding that he still have suicidal tendencies.

‘The kind of things they will say about you when you hear it you want to take your life, but at the end of the day I thank God, that I’m alive, I still get these suicidal tendencies,’ he explained.

Paa Odonkor advised the youth not to go into drugs for it will only make them miserable in future.

‘Let nobody deceive you into drugs, I can vouch for it because I have been a drug addict for 26 years,’ he advised.

He appealed to society not to neglect people who are into drugs.