Former Campaign Manager of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Boakye Agyarko, has promised his party will travel every length to make the arrest of a Ghanaian drug dealer in London a political matter.
“I have listened to people who once used to be very vociferous in accusing the NPP of drugs now arguing that we should see the issue as a national problem and not a political one…but I can assure them that we [NPP] will certainly politicize it and no one should see it as a political equalization…,” he said on Accra-based Oman FM Tuesday.
A Ghanaian woman was arrested by security operatives at the Heathrow Airport in London carrying what is believed to be one of the largest consignments of cocaine ever impounded at the international airport.
She was alleged to be carrying a Ghanaian diplomatic passport at the time of her arrest. Officials gave her name as Ruby Adu Gyamfi, who was reportedly carrying cocaine weighing 12.5kg, estimated at about 3.5 million pounds or $5 million in street value.
But Communications Minister and the Narcotic Controls Board (NACOB), indicated that the 32-year-old’s real name is Nayeli Ametefe who holds a Ghanaian passport and an Austrian citizenship.
“Her Ghanaian passport number is G03764497, and her Austrian passport number is P4187659,” they claimed.
Several politicians especially those from the ruling party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), have called on their colleagues to treat the issue as a national one and not political.
But this appeal, Mr. Agyarko said, would not be heeded to as the NPP is prepared to pay back the NDC in its own coin for tagging their presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo a drug dealer.
“Where are the likes of Haruna Iddrisu who used to refer to the NPP as Narcotic Peddlers Party, didn’t the NDC know that that was not the case before they put it in their manifesto…,?” he quizzed.
He sarcastically urged aide to the later President Mills, Koku Anyidoho to let Ruby Adu-Gyaamfi ‘sing like a canary bird’ as he claimed jailed Christian Sheriff Asem Darkey, also known as ‘Limping man’ would do when he was in police custody on drug charges.
The NPP, he said, has ‘more than necessary information’ on the arrested drug dealer and her accomplices, hence would pull all the strings to expose the NDC since that ‘is the nature of the game of politics in Ghana now.’
Mr. Agyarko said he could not understand the reason for the NDC’s ‘vigorous defense’ of the lady arrested for drugs and why Ghana’s High Commission in the United Kingdom (UK) would choose to visit her in prison.
“Why is the commission not visiting several arrested Ghanaians in UK prisons even people with lesser offences…?,” he asked.
He further described twelve and half kilograms of cocaine which Ruby was said to be carrying as a quantity huge enough to pass as a hand baggage.
The former Bank of New York Governor termed as ‘unwise’ the decision of NACOB to allow the lady safe passage through the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) only to be arrested at Heathrow, ‘if indeed the claim of the claim of NACOB that it collaborated in her arrest was true.’
“I find it very difficult to comprehend why such a body would allow the lady to go through and latter to be busted by foreign agencies…are they just interested in disgracing the country or what…they should be smart enough and come again…,” he said.
He further called on NACOB Boss, Akrasi Sarpong to hold a press conference to render a ‘blow by blow’ account of the movement of the lady at the airport for Ghanaians to know who relaxed on his/her job to allow the lady passage.
“This is the only means of exonerating the body from the case…,” he said.
To him, it was out of place for the Ghana High Commission in London to visit the arrested lady if indeed government has nothing to hide.
By: Kwaku Nti