Blows over Ruby cocaine

• Posted on November 28, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The recent 12.5kg cocaine bust at the Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom (UK) involving Nayele Ametefeh, aka Ruby Adu-Gyamfi, seems to be setting government and its agents apart as the Chairman of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) goes to town over the dissolution of the board.

Embattled outgoing Chairman of NACOB, Captain Baffour Assasie-Gyimah (rtd), is not ready to take the blame for the use of the VIP/VVIP lounge of the KIA for the transit of the cocaine to London. He has posited that NACOB cannot be held liable for the cocaine mess.“I need to emphasise that the Governing Board of NACOB and the NACOB as an administrative entity tasked with the day-to-day running of the entity, were never implicated in any way in this drug scandal saga. This is a fact. NACOB is not in-charge of airport security. NACOB is not in-charge of the VIP lounge,” he emphasised in a statement issued yesterday.

He also rejected an attempt to make his board a scapegoat in the cocaine scandal.

“Humility with respect is not synonymous with humiliation! I cannot understand why the dissolution took place. Could it be a case of sacrificing a weak and innocent lamb to appease an angry and besieged god? No. The members are not weak. We are too strong for any god to devour. In truth, this is not the way my Board should exit NACOB,” he charged.

The Governing Board was dissolved by President Mahama following the disgraceful cocaine bust.

But the retired naval captain said in the statement that he felt pained by the President’s decision to relieve him and his 16 other colleagues of their appointments without any justifiable reason.

Captain Assase-Gyimah, known for his bluntness, said “I feel the pain in building a boat so I never rock it nor even beach it.”

“On the dissolution of the Board as announced, all I can with humility say is that the power to appoint, reconstitute on expiration of terms and dismissals with cogent reasons, is the exclusive prerogative of His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana.

“When dissolutions are however announced ostensibly creating the erroneous impression as if the Board had done something untoward, that could be very disheartening, to say the least. It affects the hard won integrity and reputation of the individual members of the Board who have striven at great sacrifices to put NACOB on an even keel,” he lamented.

He however indicated that they had uncovered more interesting issues including how the drugs got into the airplane.

What baffled him was what he described as “disparaging remarks” by some government ministers since the news about the cocaine bust broke without prior checks and verification.

“Interestingly,” he said, “up to this day—the 23^rd day of November, 2014—no government official has even called to find out what they thought had gone wrong. They have not talked to my officers at all and they are bold to make categorical statements about actions and inactions of NACOB.”

“It would therefore appear very unfortunate for a minister of state who does not even know the inner workings of NACOB and the nature of collaborations, to express doubts over matters when simple checks could easily erase his doubts,” the NACOB boss noted in virtual reference to the Minister of Communications, Dr Edward Omane Boamah. He insisted, “It was not for nothing that we contacted the British High Commissioner when we wanted clarifications.”

Captain Assase-Gyimah said, “In matters like this, even knowledgeable people who are not directly involved may rightly assume certain positions only because they are limited to only what they see.”

He stated further, “I would say that in the absence of the normal courtesies to say the proper ‘good-bye’ to my very distinguished Board members, I take this opportunity to salute and thank you all the 17-Member Board. You have been wonderful.

“All I can say at this point is that I wish I could clone all of you to the tenth power and offer you to cleanse the mess in Ghana like you have done for NACOB. You are an epitome of honesty, hard work, incorruptibility, non-politicisation and patriotism. You never said it was not worth dying for Ghana!”

By Charles Takyi-Boadu