Our political discourse has fallen in love with aerodynamics lately. From the flight of guinea fowls to Burkina Faso, followed by the Airbus scandal, we are now faced with the conundrum of two aircraft making suspicious landings at our lead airport, the Kotoka International Airport. One of the aircraft belongs to AirMed, ostensibly dealing in medical evacuations or so.
We are faced with an opioid crisis in the country which has turned Ghana into both a transshipment and consumption centre, the rampant busts and the youth getting addicted to ‘red’ and tramadol attesting to this assertion.
Ghana, it would be recalled, was tagged a transshipment centre of drugs from Pakistan, cocaine and heroin, Afghanistan bound for the Americas and Europe by the US State Department, a band of dishonour she wore between 2013 and 2016.
Enter the Akufo-Addo administration and Ghana’s zero tolerance for hard drugs became palpable, the number of busts dropping to insignificant levels. Indeed, couriers found the local ambience not conducive for their trade and turned elsewhere.
Today, within three months of a new political administration and we have on our hands an unusually high number of narcotic cases, some of them hitting dead ends.
Regarding the two suspicious landings, we have noticed a rather restive government communications machinery resorting to naked insults to make their case and outright propaganda.
We have also noticed the engagement of some social media activists to support government to scuttle the story about the two landings albeit to no avail.
The responses so far do not add up, and the more attempts government spokesperson and his assigns make, the tighter the grip of the net they find themselves in.
That two aircraft landed is not in dispute, their mission still a matter of controversy and polemics.
While government is denying the allegation that the aircraft was on a drug and money laundering operation, others think otherwise.
The landing gear challenge story can best be told to the marines. We have learnt about the loss of some drugs at the point of origin of the aircraft.
The foregone and the suspicious power outage at the Kotoka International Airport when the aircraft were on the tarmac makes the story even murkier.
For now, the cocaine coast label slapped on Ghana by opponents of the government is holding sway and of course to the frustration of minders. They have been compelled to throw crazy blows in the dark and sunlight.
Last Saturday witnessed what should have passed for a decent discourse on the subject degenerating into a session of insults from Felix Kwakye Ofosu.
The government spokesperson, obviously frustrated, threw decorum to the dogs and rained invectives on the Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin South because of his position on the two aircraft.
To have described the MP and former Deputy Education Minister Rev. Ntim Fordjour as a disgrace to his constituency among others showed that the man the President chose to speak on his behalf does not understand the PR element in his terms of reference.
The Assin South MP that we know is a gentleman and has no negative story to his discredit on the internet as others do.
As for questions about the two aircraft, they will continue to be posed.
Ms. Akosua Manu, former New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for the Adenta Constituency, has opened a new chapter in the running story when she noticed the registration number presented by the MP for the Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese Constituency is different from the previous one.
According to her, the aircraft under scrutiny bore registration number N823AM while the one presented by the spokesperson is N864AM. We shall return.