I have been following closely the public comments about the recent arrest of the Hon. Eric Amoateng, in NY, USA of his alleged involvement in heroin distribution in America. While I do not condone the alleged act of the MP, I do not also think we are right or have any rights to condemn him before his conviction at a court of law. His opponents can criticize him for any reasons but I would request the people of Nkoransa and elsewhere to show their unflinching support for this man for what his generosity. There is no way any well-meaning person will approve of this kind of behavior of the MP if the alleged charge proves to be true. At this time, instead of saying vile things against him, we should think twice, and deeply sympathize with him. Whatever his motives were in this business, we all now know that he offered and still offering help to many students, women, and the deprived Nkoransa community. We as a people should rally behind him by calling on the Ghana government to request his American counterpart to deport Hon. Amoateng to Ghana to face his trial. However difficult that might be to persuade the American government, I know that is workable. The two countries can enter into some sort of negotiations to have him transferred to Ghana. Just last year, we read in Ghanaian newspapers that the Americans ?forced? the Ghana president to sign an undertaking not to prosecute any U.S. soldier who commits any crime in the country. I do not know all the details but I firmly believe that was the deal according to the reports. Why can?t we do the same thing?

Again, let me emphasis that I do not in any way support the distribution on harmful drugs that will kill people. I am open to criticism for my views on this particular subject. I think all cases should be judged by its own merits. When we read the story of Robin Hood, often time we applaud him for what he stood for. He stood for the down trodden, the diseased, the poor and the neglect in society. He preached about the famous phrase take from the rich and give to the poor. That looked neat when you were poor and had Mr. Hood supporting you at the expense of a rich person. After all the rich always take from the poor and that explains why the gap between the rich and the poor will forever widen. So what happens if one day the poor tries to pay back the rich in his own coin? There are numerous occasions the rich distributed other substances of harmful and mass destruction, one way or the other to kill the poor but in all these cases they run away with it.

If we can sympathize with Robin Hood of a developed nation while can?t we also express the same sympathy to Hon. Eric Amoateng? Is it that the other happened to be white and the other a person of color?

When I said the rich distributed other substances that were meant to kill the poor, others may disagree with the assertion. But I can say without doubt that most of the coup d'?tat that we witnessed in most developing or poor countries, which took away previous lives, including former head of states, judges, children, women, etc. in Ghana were credited to the rich or the so-called developed nations. Didn?t they sell guns and ammunitions to gangsters and later incite them to disrupt peaceful but poor countries while they get their money to provide good health care, good roads, etc for their people? They have sold AIDS to developing nations and it has now become the number one killer disease in Africa. I didn?t know of AIDS when I was growing up and I do not know if you did. But here they say African disease ? AIDS. Why?

If all we can do is to criticize the Hon. MP on the moral aspect of his alleged crime then I think we ought to channel our criticism first to the ?Rich? who supposedly claimed to cherish human life but do otherwise at the expense of the poor. Why do you think they are in Iraq but were not in Cote D?Ivoire or Liberia when violence erupted in those countries after they have provide intelligence and guns to gangsters? Do you know what they said? I remember watching a discussion show on Fox News channel when the panel concluded the American would not go to Liberia because there are no major American interests in that country so there is no sense of urgency for the government to deploy troops there. I didn?t see them in Ghana when we went under oppressive regimes but I know they sold out guns to be used on the people. If they are serious about democracy and human life, I think they should have been in Palestine long since. The million-dollar question is what is the motivating factor to go and restore democracy to the Hamas people? Their own intelligence people know that they are not fighting human right or democracy war but OIL war in Iraq. The more blood that are shed the more OIL they can get to support their economy while the Iraqis and the rest of the poor nations like Ghana buy oil at high costs. So do you think these people sincerely care about you the poor? Indeed that is a subject for discussion but I know for fact that they always think of the AMERICA INTEREST first. And if it does not fall within their radial screen then forget it. They will look while you languish in your poverty.

I do not understand why we cannot recognize the fact that they are killing poor people in poor nations by distributing all manner of substances and other forms of drugs to them. They have deliberately introduced what they called a lottery to lure poor African doctors and intellectuals to abandon their country to seek greener pastures in their country at the expense of poor nations. Imagine a poor country spending its meager resource to educate one of its citizens to become a doctor or nurse to be able to administer good health care to its people. But after the person?s training, he or she is lured to leave his or her country to another country to care for that country?s people. Assuming a person in that poor country as a result of not having a doctor and/or nurse available to administer medication to him dies ? whom would you blame for the cause of his death? Would you wholly blame the unpatriotic doctor or nurse or that so-called kind, rich and super power nation who would only seek after their interest? The same thing can be said of someone who deals in cocaine. This country and the drug dealer only seek after their own selfish interest without having a second thought about the impact of their actions on society. One would argue that cocaine is more harmful than ?brain drain? but while that might seem obvious I believe that the rich country?s lottery is equally as damaging and as harmful as ?coke?. Think about it this way, if you have a patient in an emergency situation and there is no physician around to take care of the case, what do you think will eventually happen to the patient? And on the other hand, you have someone selling what you know to be a harmful drug and you go to buy it. By the way, it is not the poor that buy the coke because they cannot afford to and the reason I said rob the rich and give to the poor. Exactly what the Hon. Amoateng was up to doing. I have heard one drug lord as having said the same thing. To continue, in the coke scenario, we can all agree that the individuals who become eventual victims of the drugs have enormous choice to choose between good or bad health and life or death. But can we say the same thing about patients who do not have a doctor or nurse around them? I do not think a patient in an emergency situation would prefer not to have a doctor to heal him or her.

I will leave it here for people to draw their own conclusions whether the Hon. Amoateng deserves fair trial and/or fair criticism. It is said that ?owuo biara da owuo? meaning, ?all die be die?. Anyone who intends to condemn him should liken his case to that country that is hiding behind democracy and human right abuse to kill for OIL for its people. What we have here is a situation whereby two individuals are distributing two harmful substances in different shape and form, but the other is accusing his opponent for trying to destroy his people.

Let us remember the hundreds who will end their education abruptly as a result of this case and the community that will not see any rehabilitation on their roads and hospitals.

Poor nations should rise up and use their God given talents to develop the rich natural resources God has endowed them to enrich their economies and to provide good living standards to their people. If those countries without any sources of uranium can have stockpiles of them to empower their economies, why can?t the source exploit and develop them? I do not understand why Niger cannot have and process uranium for other uses but Americans and the rest of the elite nations can have them.

Mr. President step in and do not allow politicians to dictate to you what should be done under this circumstance. Extend the same gesture you gave to Peprah and his cronies to Mr. Amoateng. After all the Peprahs didn?t have any history of helping any of their countrymen and women instead they helped to enrich a foreigner at the expense of the nation. We should judge every case on its own substance and merits. Again, I do not condone any form of distribution of harmful drugs to persons of any kind. However, I would say that Hon. Amoateng deserves our sympathy and fair criticism.

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