Despite Ex-NACOB Capo’s ‘Ugly Noises’ About His Professionalism & Track-Record…

Mr. Ben Ndego, the former Head of Operations of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) who told Joy FM’s Newsfile host, Kwaku Sakyi-Addo last Saturday, that the Mills-led Administration has recalled him from a protracted leave, was one of the two most senor officials of NACOB, the Georgina Wood Committee recommended to be reprimanded for dereliction of duty.

Mr. Ndego, in the wake of the recent ‘Wikileaks cables disclosures’, has been on some of the radio networks touting his so-called professional track-record and self acclaimed honesty while casting innuendos and aspersions on others such as former Minister of Interior, Albert Kan Dapaah, former Acting Head of NACOB, Mr. Ben Botwe and his Deputy, Mark Ewuntomah. He was even on a radio network last week challenging certain statements made by former President Kufuor; and claiming that the latter had been misinformed and/or wrongly briefed while in office, on some developments within NACOB.

Last Saturday, Mr. Ndego called into Joy FM’s current affairs programme, NEWSFILE to confront Abdul-Malik Kweku Baako, Editor-in-Chief of this paper, and Nana Akomeah, NPP Member of Parliament for Okai Koi South on some statements the two gentlemen had made which he found unpalatable, and ended up exposing himself as an embittered man with an axe to grind with some persons in the previous NPP administration and the erstwhile NACOB hierarchy.

However, a scrutiny of the findings contained in the Georgina Wood Committee’s Final Report and other unpublished official records available to The New Crusading GUIDE, shows that Mr. Ndego’s ‘holier than thou’ posture and self-acclaimed credentials are not supported by anything of evidential value. Indeed the records show that serious questions of integrity and professionalism had been raised against him in the course of his career as a NACOB official and The New Crusading GUIDE intends throwing its searchlight on those issues and events for the perusal of our readers and for the sake of posterity.

For starters, we recall aspects of the Georgina Wood Committee’s Final Report that dealt with the conduct of NACOB and its top officials, especially Mr. Ben Ndego in the wake of the MV Benjamin Cocaine saga.

According to the Georgina Wood Committee’s Final Report, evidence gathered by it (Committee) clearly showed that Mr. Ben Ndego was one of the two most senior officials of NACOB who had the tape recording of the ACP Kofi Boakye meeting with Tagor and Alhaji Abass and others.

The Committee found it TOTALLY STRANGE that Ndego and his other top senior colleague claimed that they listened to ONLY A PORTION OF THE TAPE.

“The Committee finds their explanation that they were busily caught up in their official travel arrangements untenable. The Committee found that the failed operation was a source of great embarrassment to the NACOB organization and the country as a whole. The Committee therefore concluded that any serious minded senior officer, caught in the throes of losing the trust and confidence of the very people he or she serves, would have strained every nerve to listen to and analyse the contents of the recording, for the simple reason that it might contain some vital information that might lead to the recovery of the seventy-six (76) sacks of cocaine and the arrest of those involved in the importation”, observed the Committee in paragraph 24.3 on page 49 of its Final Report dated September 15, 2006.

The Committee further found a clear lack of proper judgement and direction on the part of Ben Ndego and the other senior official, and consequently expressed the opinion that “SUCH CONDUCT, IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THIS CASE IS A CLEAR DERELICTION OF DUTY WHICH MUST BE CONDEMNED IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS”.

The Committee therefore recommended that the two senior officials one of whom was “Saint” Ndego “BE REPRIMANDED FOR DERELICTION OF DUTY”.

Other aspects of the Committee’s work which brought Mr. Ndego’s ‘holier than thou’ attitude to the fore had to do with the whys and hows the multi-agency operation to bust the MV Benjamin had failed and the attempts by the lead agency, NACOB to allocate blame onto the shoulders of the other agencies such as the Ghana Navy and Ghana Air Force.

Observing that the Committee was mindful of the fact that in failed multi agency operations, the tendency was for the lead agency in particular, to blame others for the failure, it (Committee) decided to treat allegations and counter allegations against all the agencies which participated in the operation with caution.

It was within this context that the Committee found that “THE RATHER DISTURBING CLAIM BY MR. BEN NDEGO THAT THE BENJAMIN HAD ALL THE FREQUENCIES OF THE GHANA NAVY WAS NOT PROVEN”.

The Captain of the GNS ANZONE, Commander Issah Yakubu, who actually took part in the search of the BENJAMIN after its arrest, according to the Committee, vehemently denied Mr. Ndego’s wild claims.

“THE COMMITTEE REASONED THAT WITHOUT THE PRODUCTION OF SOME PIECE OF CREDIBLE EVIDENCE BY MR. BEN NDEGO, AS FOR EXAMPLE, A WRITTEN RECORD OF THE FACT ASSERTED; IT WOULD BE UNSAFE TO RELY ON ONLY THE BARE ORAL ASSERTION OF MR. BEN NDEGO TO CONCLUDE THAT INDEED THE BENJAMIN HAD ALL THE NAVY FREQUENCIES”, the Final Report stated in paragraph 13.5, on page 26.

The Committee noted furthermore that as a fact finding body, it relied on proved facts to inform its findings. “A NUMBER OF SUSPICIONS NO MATTER HOW MANY, CANNOT AMOUNT TO PROOF”, it declared in relation to Ndego’s allegations relative to MV Benjamin’s alleged access to the frequencies of the Ghana Navy.

The Committee also commended Commander Issah Yakubu for his resourcefulness and for demonstrating zeal and commitment during the period he was in command of the GNS ANZONE.

The Committee noted that it would have been a matter of great national pride had the MV Benjamin vessel been arrested immediately it entered Ghanaian waters.

“Given the wealth of intelligence that NACOB received from the foreign partners, it is a tragedy that they were unable to do so. By the time the vessel was finally first sighted, it was berthed within the anchorage area of the TEMA HARBOUR”, underscored the Committee in paragraph 5.4 page 15 of its Final Report.

The Committee found that NACOB was notified by their intelligence counterparts of the drug importation well before the vessel sailed into Ghanaian waters, and that continuing monitoring by the international partners enabled NACOB to obtain the vessel’s coordinates and its aerial and side pictures.

The Committee conceded that although NACOB had a wealth of information in opportune time, they were completely immobilized by lack of logistics and had to fall on other agencies for logistical support.

“NONETHELESS THE COMMITTEE FINDS THAT ALTHOUGH THE NACOB WAS ALERTED ON THE 21ST OF APRIL, 2006, IT WAS NOT UNTIL 24TH APRIL, 2006, BY THEIR ESTIMATION OR 25TH OF APRIL BY THE NAVY’S ASSERTION, THAT THEIR ASSISTANCE WAS SOUGHT. THE COMMITTEE THEREFORE FINDS THAT IT APPEARS NACOB DELAYED IN INFORMING THE NAVY AND THE AIR FORCE THAT THEIR ASSISTANCE WILL BE NEEDED”, stated the Committee in paragraph 9.4 on page 8.

Clearly all these lapses/failures, whether due to subjective or objective factors, transpired when Ben Ndego was at post and was fully in charge of NACOB operations, and yet the same person has been on various radio networks in recent times, strenuously trying to create the impression that NACOB’s real and/or imagined failures, lapses and omissions occurred only after his exit from the NACOB hierarchy!

The records, as we have already indicated, do not support his weird assertions. And The New Crusading GUIDE shall endeavour to prove that systematically and evidentially. Please stay tuned…