Not a single week passes in Ghana without news of some people being arrested at the Kotoka Airport in Accra for attempting to ship out some quantity of hard drugs, be it heroin, cocaine or Indian Hemp (known in Ghana as “wee”). Many of the arrested suspects are Ghanaians while others are foreign nationals mostly Nigerians. Over the past couple of years, the drug world’s barons have detected that security checks at Ghana’s major gateway, the Kotoka Airport and the sea ports of Tema and Takoradi are so loose that many pitched camp in Ghana. The country is now being used as the transit point for the re-shipment of drugs from the Far East to the West, notably to North America and Western Europe.
Many of these operations have succeeded in beating the security net at the Ports of Entry and Departure from Ghana. Some of the carriers have been arrested after they arrive in North America or at some European ports. The Ghanaian accomplices in this dirty saga have also invented all kinds of innovative ways to beat the security screening at the ports of departure from Ghana. Some succeed, others don’t! Others also manage to beat the security net at the North American and European ports. Others are not so lucky! A few examples: In October, 1998 a Ghanaian passenger on a Swissair flight from Accra-Zurich-Montreal was arrested at the Dorval Airport in Montreal with a large quantity of cocaine, valued by the arresting customs agents to be over 4 million U.S dollars. The drugs were nicely concealed in our treasured delicacy, salted fish, known to Ogyakromians as koobi. That was a very smart move. Since then, Ogyakromians arriving from trips to Ghana with a few supplies of the treasured koobi have been subjected to serious and demeaning searches at Airports around the world. The US and Canadian customs guys will let you take your koobi home after subjecting you to the nasty searches. The British and Dutch (Holland) customs will have nothing to do with the koobi nonsense. They will seize any fish you attempt to pass through their airports with, salted or dry.
Once the koobi route was detected and closed, the drug guys have been trying new “technologies”; the latest is the canned palm-nut soup (abenkwan). A number of people have been arrested at the Kotoka Airport with quantities of cocaine or heroine concealed inside the sealed abenkwan. The cocaine stuff that was allegedly found with former Nkoranza Member of Ghana’s Parliament, Eric Amoateng was reported to be concealed in nicely woven local ceramic pots (asanka). Another “smart” move!!
Over a year ago, a number of Ghanaian police officers including very senior officers were implicated in the disappearance of a large quantity of cocaine that had been offloaded from a ship in Ghana’s territorial waters. The most recent stories were the arrest of four British teenagers at the Kotoka Airport, two in July and two in early November 2007 for attempting to smuggle some quantity of cocaine from Ghana to Britain. They all remain in jail in Ghana. The drug barons have now shifted into low gears, using very young people as mules. How sad and dangerous!!!
All these go to show how serious, organized and determined the drug trade through Ghana has become. The situation has been so alarming that the British Customs Department has been assisting their Ghanaian counterparts in special operations at the Ports in Ghana aimed at stopping the traffickers. These joint operations, continuous arrests and prosecutions have still not stopped the traffickers from doing everything they can to push their cargo through the ports in Ghana to their market destinations in North America and Europe. It is my humble submission that what is going on in Ghana should be of concern to everyone of Ghanaian origin living anywhere in the world. First we are all affected by the bad image that this drug transit trade through Ghana is creating for anyone traveling to and from Ghana. Everyone traveling with a Ghanaian passport is now an automatic drug suspect once you transit through any airport in Europe, North America or the Far East. This dented image affects everyone who claims allegiance to Ghana, the Land of Our Birth.
Of equally serious consequence to those of us living outside Ghana is the fact that some of these drugs that are being shipped through Ghana’s ports end up on the streets of some North American and European cities. Some of our Ghanaian youths in these cities have become involved in their distribution and the results are there for us to see and dread: the daily reports of our youth who are shooting others and being shot in the dirty drug and gang warfare that is raging on the streets of Toronto and other cities.
In the pages of the Ghanaian Community Newspaper published in Toronto this month, November 2007, Ghanaian community members are voicing their views and feelings on the escalating violence involving our youth that have led to very tragic results over the past few years. We can no longer sit by and pretend that what is taking place through Ghana’s ports of entry and departure does not concern us here in Canada, US or Europe. Some of those that have been arrested with illicit drugs concealed in koobi, asanka, or abenkwan live among us. When they succeed in beating the customs net at the ports in Ghana and end up among us with their drug shipments, it is some of our youth that are recruited to do the distribution through their gangs. We all pay the price. Either we know some of the youth who are killing and being killed or we spend our time to attend their funerals. In the end we all go home and forget until another one gets shot or arrested for shooting someone or for distributing some of the drugs.
The situation is getting out of hand. The Ghanaian communities around the world especially in North America need to start serious consultations aimed at finding ways to contribute to getting our youth out of this dangerous trade. And we need to also be on the lookout for the adults in our midst whose trade is to courier the drugs over from the hot transit points in Ghana. Their actions affect all of us. The leadership of the Ghanaian communities around the world should start organizing immediately on this issue. We cannot afford to lose any more of our youth to the gangs, to the streets, to the drug trade and to the graves!!
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
