NDC Has a Long History of Drug Dealing and Trafficking

Since the inception of Ghana’s Fourth Republic and the near-hermetic domination of our national political landscape and culture by the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” Rawlings-founded institutional establishment of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the top-echelon operatives of the latter Left-leaning faux-socialist political party has been mired in the export and the import of narcotic contrabands. There is, for example, the globally infamous Benneh Case of the 1990s, in which a diplomatic operative of the erstwhile late President Rawlings’ government of the National Democratic Congress was widely reported to have been caught or arrested by German security authorities with several parcels of high grade commercial-quality contraband of either cocaine or heroin - I forget exactly which - and been hurriedly rescued by “The Chairman” himself behind diplomatic closed doors. At least that was the media report put into the mainstream at the time.

Back then, as now, as this writer vividly recalls, the initial reports of the high-profile arrest of the alleged criminal suspect by the local Ghanaian newspapers were vehemently pooh-poohed or denied by The Osu Castle resident operatives of the Rawlings Presidency as a dastardly attempt by the political opposition to irreparably tarnish the image of the then Bretton-Woods showcase of a rarefied progressive beacon of good governance on the African Continent. It was during the IMF-World Bank rip -off of many a Third-World nation, pretty much akin to the sort of déja-vu propaganda halo that presently festoons the Traoré junta in Ghana’s immediate northern neighbor of Burkina Faso.

So, it absolutely ought not to come as a total surprise that some key operatives of the Mahama 2.0 Presidency or regime would also be vehemently denying the highly authoritative and forensically credible allegation by the New Patriotic Party-sponsored Member of Parliament for Assin-South Constituency, in the Central Region, that the recently intercepted humongous consignment of 3.3 tons of high-grade cocaine, with an estimated street or market value of some $350 million (USD), would equally be cavalierly and vehemently denied by the topmost leadership of the National Democratic Congress who have, as usual, cleverly albeit scarcely convincingly, resorted to what they have always been known and recognized to do best, which is to swiftly and massively - in gangster fashion - attempt to tarnish the image and the reputation of the Rev. John Ntim-Fordjuor, who also happens to be the immediate-past Deputy Minister of Education, and hope that, somehow, this episode would also be quickly swept under the carpet of transient media hullabaloo and be permanently consigned to oblivion.

But, of course, such trite and jaded gimmickry is highly unlikely to work any magic in favor of the smooth-operating drug kingpins and the robber barons of the revolutionarily self-righteous apparatchiks and hired goons and operatives of the National Democratic Congress this time around. It is also unignorably significant to herein underscore the deliberately overlooked fact that Rev. Ntim-Fordjuor is the New Patriotic Party’s Parliamentary Minority Caucus’ Ranking Member on the Defense and the Interior Committee of the country’s august Ninth National Assembly or Parliament.

Now, what the preceding means is that the Gentleman (in Ghana, they call them “Honorables”), making the allegation has National-Security Clearance and is therefore privy to a lot of going-ons at they very top echelons of Ghanaian society that most of us have absolutely no idea about or could scarcely fathom. But, of course, what makes Mr. Ntim-Fordjuor’s exposé, as some commentators and observers choose to call it, or whistleblowing allegation all the more unimpeachably credible is the fact that the professionally or expertly estimated alleged 3.3 tons of commercial-grade cocaine, had been intercepted by National Security Operatives of the late Capt. (Ret) Kojo Tsikata- restructured National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), formerly known as the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), and before the latter redesignation the Special Branch of the Ghana Police Service (SB of GPS).

In short, for the credibility of the whistleblower to be effectively and definitively blown apart or irreparably destroyed or compromised, as it were, the Ntim-Fordjuor detractors at the Mahama Presidency, such as Mr. Felix Ofosu-Kwakye and Dr. Edward (Kofi) Omane-Boamah, the Defense Minister, must also be able to come public with forensically credible information or evidence, authoritatively contradicting or refuting the fact that, indeed, agents from the National Intelligence Bureau had intercepted a ginormous consignment of contraband cocaine estimated to weigh approximately 3.3 tons.

As well, we are also reliably informed that during the same aforesaid operation, authorities from the National Intelligence Bureau also uncovered “143 bags of cocaine concealed under [a mound of] sand in a tipper truck traveling from Takoradi to Weija in Accra” (See “$350 m Cocaine Bust: ‘An NDC Parliamentary Candidate Owns Part of It - Ntim Fordjuor Alleges” Ghanaweb.com 4/6/25). The afore-referenced otherwise very brief news story has far too many moving parts to it, as New Yorkers are wont to say, such that Yours Truly is having a hard time literally wrapping his head around it.

Still, it comes as absolutely no surprise that the top leadership of the National Democratic Congress would be neck- and pate-deep mired in the kind of criminal and illegal international cocaine trafficking being most authoritatively alleged here by a member of the New Patriotic Party’s Parliamentary “Micro-Minority,” as they have come to be sardonically designated by members of the National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary “Mega-Majority.” Which pretty much reminds me of something I learned when I was way down in primary school, which is that of all God’s critters/creatures, the most fearsome to the Elephant is the Ant.

In other words, the globally infamous Colombia Cocaine Peddlers and Robber Barons of the NDC’s Mega-Majority would be committing political suicide, if they make the characteristically NPP blunder of chuckleheadedly underestimating the political strength and the strategic capacity of their New Patriotic Party “Micro-Minority” counterparts.

But, of course, I am also thinking about the need for our courts to order these cocaine contrabands to be sold to the drug and the pharmaceutical companies in the country, such as PZ, to be used for more healthy and legitimately controlled purposes and profitability, with some of the liquid cash proceeds from such sales being used to fund a myriad of national development projects, such as the timely completion of the so-called Agenda-111 Hospitals and Clinics and the low-premium National Health Insurance Scheme.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
April 6, 2025
E-mail: [email protected]