Ghana has been silently chosen by drug pushers as a principal hub for the movement of cocaine to Europe and other parts of the world in recent times.
The camaraderie between Accra and Bogota following the establishment of special ties has seemingly provided an auspicious ambience for the illicit trade, so think watchers of the recent hike in drug movements from Ghanaian ports.
It is instructive that the historic ties between the two countries created at the Foreign Affairs level has witnessed the heightened movement of drugs from Ghanaian ports to their European counterparts.
The recent busts in France and earlier the meth-in-charcoal in Australia which originated from Ghana are cases which put us in an unenviable position of drug hub. These, however, are outside the Bogota network.
To what end will the post 2024 special links with Colombia serve the interests of Ghana?
While we may not know the answer, the Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa certainly took the decision for reasons only known to him and his boss the President.
All we know as citizens of this great country of ours is that the new link has come at a cost to our image; the heightened drug movement from our coast which has gotten us worried.
Even as the President and his security chiefs met over the embarrassing drug busts in the light of the growing bad image we are earning as a country, isolated yet worrying busts continued to be made as if to mock the Commander-in-Chief. In one of the busts, the police made a successful interception of drugs locally. In yet another one, a man whose journey originated from Ghana was arrested in South Africa with cocaine. These happened when the outcome of the presidential meeting on drugs is out of the public view.
The development is no longer funny and any attempt to confine the truth under the carpet will not serve our interest.
The man who claimed he had orders from above when the France bust came under scrutiny must sing more so the details of ‘the above orders’ will be made public.
As we pointed out in an earlier commentary, a serious tackling of the subject under review can only be done in the context of a holistic approach. Choosing which of the series to investigate and which not, only reinforces the suspicion of Ghanaians that some highly placed persons are involved in the drug business. They are untouchable because they are connected to the political system.
Our security personnel are primed to get to the root of the drug deals which appeared on the public radar if they are given the orders to do so.
Parading suspects is not a good means of convincing us that some headway is being made.
We have been at a stage where some Indians were paraded as brains behind some missing Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) imported items at the Port of Tema. The case died as soon as it was mentioned in the media. Even the whole so-called theft was seen by cynics as part of a propaganda manoeuver by officialdom.