Christian Council to State: Chase the Money, Not Just the Couriers ‎

The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) has entered Ghana's escalating cocaine controversy with a pointed moral intervention, calling for intensified efforts to dismantle the financial networks behind narcotics trafficking rather than settling for the prosecution of couriers.

The call followed a visit to the Council by the New Patriotic Party's Policy Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Security and its Committee on Religious Affairs on Thursday, 24 September 2026, and was delivered in a statement by the Council's Chairman, Rev. Enoch Nii Narh Thompson.

A pointed question about who gets punished

The Council's central argument is a moral one dressed in plain language: does Ghana pursue the people who finance and organise drug trafficking with the same vigour it applies to the low-level couriers who get paraded before cameras? Its answer, implicit in the statement, is no and it warned that a justice system which punishes desperate couriers while shielding wealthy financiers undermines the rule of law itself.

The Council went further, linking narcotics proceeds directly to corruption, arguing that illicit financial gains can corrode public institutions, distort political processes, and cheapen the value Ghanaians place on honest work.

This is not an abstract theological point. It echoes, almost exactly, the language NPP National Organiser Henry Nana Boakye used days earlier at a 22 September press conference, where he demanded a full public account of the financiers and organisers behind what he called twelve embarrassing drug-related incidents, insisting investigations must move beyond "the low-level suspect paraded before the cameras."

The near-identical framing between the party delegation and the church body it visited raises an obvious question about how independent the Council's intervention really is one the Council itself anticipated.

Guarding its neutrality
The CCG was explicit that its engagement with the NPP delegation should not be read as political endorsement. It stated firmly that it remains non-partisan, citing its 2023 Constitution, and framed the meeting as a request from the NPP delegation for what it called a "non-partisan moral, pastoral and spiritual intervention" in response to the scale of narcotics trafficking and its knock-on effects on national security, young people, families and the country's social and spiritual wellbeing.

Whether the optics of a single-party delegation visiting the Council survive that framing in the public mind is a separate matter, particularly with an election cycle already sharpening partisan lines around the cocaine issue.

A remarkably candid voice from inside the governing party's own ranks

The most striking element of this story may not be the Christian Council's statement itself, but who else was in the room. Kwesi Pratt-adjacent commentary aside, it was Communications Advisor to the Christian Council Koku Anyidoho a former NDC communications operative who delivered the sharpest personal remarks, telling the visiting NPP delegation that the cocaine saga "hurts me on that side of the political divide," recalling that the NDC itself had made cocaine trafficking a campaign issue against the Kufuor government in 2006–2008 following the MV Benjamin case.

Anyidoho's insistence that "this cocaine matter must not be politicised, it is about Ghana" is notable precisely because it comes from someone whose career was partly built on turning an earlier cocaine scandal into a partisan weapon.

The wider political fight this sits inside

The Council's statement lands in the middle of a live parliamentary standoff: the Minority has demanded a full probe into a string of seizures worth more than $1 billion since 2025, Speaker Bagbin has recalled Parliament for 29 September, and the Majority has so far resisted a separate inquiry, arguing security agencies should be allowed to finish their own investigations first.

Ghana's history gives the Christian Council's intervention extra weight. The country's most infamous drug case, that of former MP Eric Amoateng, ended with investigations into his accomplice's assets proceeding while efforts to seize Amoateng's own assets reportedly stalled amid allegations of interference by officials in the then-governing party precisely the "couriers punished, financiers shielded" pattern the Council now warns against repeating.

Why it matters
Whatever its political entanglements, the Christian Council's intervention adds a moral authority to the financiers argument that party politics alone cannot supply. Ghana's churches carry real weight in public life, and a statement from the Council explicitly warning that shielding financiers erodes the rule of law is harder for any government to dismiss than an opposition press conference.

The test now is whether it changes anything concrete when Parliament reconvenes on 29 September, or whether it becomes one more voice added to a chorus that, so far, has generated statements and press conferences rather than named financiers.

Mustapha Bature Sallama
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,

International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. (USIP)

[email protected]
+233555275880

Sources
Hot Digital Online, "Christian Council calls for intensified efforts to dismantle networks behind narcotics trafficking," 24 Sep 2026. https://www.hotdigitalonline.com/news/christian-council-calls-for-intensified-efforts-to-dismantle-networks-behind-narcotics-trafficking/

Asaase Radio, "Cocaine saga is an embarrassment; seeing this under NDC hurts me — Anyidohoho," 24 Sep 2026. https://asaaseradio.com/cocaine-saga-is-an-embarrassment-seeing-this-under-ndc-hurts-me-anyidohoho/

GBC Ghana Online, "NPP Demands Public Accounts of Financiers behind Ghana-Linked Drug Cases," 22 Sep 2026. https://www.gbcghanaonline.com/general/financiers-behind-ghana-linked-drug-cases/2026/

Hot Digital Online, "Cocaine busts disgrace Ghana abroad," 22 Sep 2026 (GCBC and NPP statements). https://www.hotdigitalonline.com/news/cocaine-busts-disgrace-ghana-abroad/

ModernGhana / JoyNews video index, "Christian Council demands action against financiers behind drug trafficking," 24 Sep 2026. https://www.modernghana.com/videonews/joynews/1/722675

Wikipedia, "Eric Amoateng" (background on the stalled asset-seizure pattern). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Amoateng

Wikipedia, "Christian Council of Ghana" (institutional background on the Council's role in governance commentary). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Council_of_Ghana