Recent Cocaine Saga: Why the Board and Head of NACOC Must be Changed

Risk management is the systematic process of identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and mitigating threats or uncertainties that could negatively impact an organization's objectives or capital, or earnings. Hence, in institutional governance, when a predictable vulnerability is left unaddressed and subsequently exploited by criminal networks, accountability falls squarely on leadership's failure to maintain a resilient defense posture and or advocate for the tools required to fulfill their mandate.

So, retired Major Mohammed Bogobiri wishes to clearly state that both the Board and the Head of Narcotic Control Commission (NACOC) should resign honorably or failing that they should be relieved of their posts.

Our respected Security Experts who said or thought or think otherwise need to revise their notes on the requirement at very Sensitive Agencies and the differences between a Leader and Manager. Especially a leader of a sensitive or Security Agency. A gist of the differences is stated in a page below. Seasoned Security Expert Mr Richard Kumado is doing a good job but he got it wrong with some of his utterances with this cocaine saga.

Mr Richard Kumado was wrong for rubbishing the info of the Minister for National Security, when the Minister proclaimed that the French Authorities were not ready to share intelligence with Ghana. Saying that the Minister is a politician as such based on need to know basis, they French would not like to share intelligence with him. Meant he did not take note that the NACOC line Manager or line/chain of communication is the same Minister. So the Minister could not have said so, if his subordinates did not tell him so.

He was also wrong with rubbishing the call for Parliamentary probe by the Minority Group or Parliament, thanks to him for demo he was a real gentleman with his profound apologies. It should be noted that the matter is of public interest/importance and by Clause (1) (c) of Article 278 of the Constitution, Parliament is required to act appropriately. This is besides the ultimate responsibility of Parliament with the oversight authority to scrutinize the works and policies of the Executive Arm of government as required by the doctrine of Separation of powers/checks and balances/the principle of Constitutionality and Constitutionalism.

The Act by the Minority Group or Parliament is a part of measures to restore public confidence on NACOC especially with the leak intelligence of the gap. Note NACOC was not removed from the Port; they were only made to act as and when necessary based on Intelligence and demand physical check of any container which in reality meant that they could check on all containers on suspicion of foul play.

Otherwise nothing prevented NACOC to demand they (NACOC) put in place surveillance physically before a Container is loaded or electronically or both during the loading of a Container and fixing the Commission’s seal or escort same Container to the Port for loading to the designated Ship.

These later suggestions were gathered from intelligence from the Executive Secretary General of the Exporters and Importers Association namely Mr Sampson Awugabit. This meant that the expected acts like what have been suggested by Mr Sampson Awugabit were/are not done in Kumasi and Accra Container loading depot.

So, if what he said is true, then this was/is a very serious omission by the National Security System especially when Ghana has been flagged as one of the Coastal Countries with cocaine dealers. This suggestion by Sampson is a very good one, since the dealers like a Mouse would look for gaps in the system to escape from Security elements as the Cat, so Security element as the Cat must be proactive to catch the mouse. So National Security System should buy his suggestions.

Mr Richard Kumado should also note that the fact that the French Authorities indicated that it was based on reliable intelligence that made them to bust the cocaine at the Port of Dunkirk, did not necessary mean that the Intelligence was relayed to them by NACOC or any Security Agency. It, could be by someone from Serra Leone or another place or from Ghana during the handling when it was in Ghana including the sea zone under Ghana.

The knee jerk reactions, especially the languages both body and oral of the Interior Minister/ Minister for National Security, especially his statement that the French were/are not willing to share intelligence with Ghana. Likewise that of the Head of NACOC and his Deputy, the body language of the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces during the briefing, his visible anger and the disclosure of the secret intelligence on the alleged lowering of the guard by NACOC, which made the very disturbed President to order for the national security meeting with the key affected operators which culminated in his order for the swift remedial actions including collaboration at the Port.

These signals should be enough telling to anyone especially a very honest Security Intelligent person or Expert to come to a logical conclusion that the source of the French intelligence is outside the Authorities of Ghana. So to suggest that the intelligence was based on the collaboration with the authorities of Ghana is definitely not correct.

Of course the French would collaborate with Ghana after the busting of the cocaine for Ghana to cause the arrest of the affected persons in Ghana and for Ghana to up their vigil/close gaps. It is possibly that the cocaine came from Sierra Leone or the intelligence was based on images from Satellite covering the High Sea or Ghana or from a member of the crew of the shipping line, maybe due to the reactions during the movements or from someone in Ghana.

This writer’s recommendation for the changing of the top echelons persons of NACOC is strongly based on (a). The unguided utterances of Narcotic Control Commission especially the info by the Deputy Director General of NACOC with the allegation that the withdrawal of personnel or resources by the previous regime in 2018 directly contributed to the recent massive cocaine smuggling breakthrough, (b). The prompt action by the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, His Excellency President Mahama by demo effective leadership by immediate remedial proactive actions.

One is shocked by the unguided utterances of some of the officials of NACOC and their affiliates, surprisingly including some Security Expects and some Hons MPs, who on the behalf of the voters or the people were/are expected to scrutinize the work or policies of the Executive Arm of Government sung or are also singing from the same song in the hymn book,. Some personnel of the previous Regime may be likely suspects or could be blamed for the creating the gap. So it is a fact finding Commission of Inquiry that would give the truth to the whole world.

By the unguided utterances of officials of NACOC and their affiliates, it is therefore logical to firmly conclude that the Board and the Head of NACOC were negligent for not ensuring proactive institutional actions if truly there was a gap. Thus it strongly points the failure to conduct risk survey by the current leadership of Narcotic Control Commission for proactive institutional action or advocacy for control measures. The failure to seal the alleged gaps and effective monitoring by the current regime contributed to the current cocaine smuggling breakthrough on the front burner.

So, stories of narcotic smuggling breakthrough if any before the one to France makes the case of the current management as seriously ineffective leaders, or a very gross negligence on their part since with the past intelligence, they should have carried out immediate remedial actions. So no one should be allowed to waste our ears with past kwaku ananse stories because we are expected to study past or history to help guide current and future actions, this therefore tells the essence of a risk assessment for proactive actions including informing the National Security Coordinator or the President for support to deal with gaps.

Based on this writer’s security analyses which touched on a critical aspect of institutional accountability and systemic vulnerabilities; it is recommended that the President and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces should reshuffle the Board and the Head of Narcotic Control Commission.

This is very crucial since the arrest of cocaine on the Cape Coast road and other places, as well as the smuggled of the narcotic drug as 320k of Methamphetamine worth 260 Million US Dollars on 18 June 2026 to Australia which was found inside a legitimate cargo consignment of charcoal from Ghana and the narrative by the Narcotics Commission strongly confirmed that the Board and the Head woefully failed to take proactive actions after the stated incidents or do risk assessments would have identified that the alleged gap created due to the strategic withdrawal of personnel or resources of NACOC could directly contribute to another smuggling breakthrough.

So, when one looks at this through the lens of organizational leadership and oversight, several key failures typically come into play as follows;

Failure in Risk Assessment
(a), Lack of Threat Modeling: Immediately the new team of the Board and the Head took over the responsibilities of the Role for the assets, functions/hazards hence as the Risks Owners of NACOC effective 2025, the Board and the new Head of NACOC should have reviewed the handing over notes and or conducted a prompt comprehensive risk assessment in 2025 and another one after one year. The handing over notes or first risk assessment would have informed or made them to realize that the decision to withdraw narcotics agents or dismantle checkpoints, or scale back surveillance from high-risk transit points like ports, airports or borders, creates gaps in operational risk management especially when Ghana had incident reports on Narcotic drugs for the past 10years, for them to come out with threat modeling.

(b). Vulnerability Exposure: A Risk assessment in 2025 or before the latest cocaine saga would have made them to realize that a failure by NACOC to project how international syndicates would exploit a resulting vacuum constitutes a severe operational oversight/blunder. Since in security architecture, removing a layer of defense without a compensating control is a known catalyst for systemic failure.

Failure to Lobby for Rectification
Institutional Silence: If leadership had done a good risk assessment in 2025 or before the latest cocaine saga, they would have recognized that the alleged resource withdrawals or change in policy mandates could create dangerous security gaps, this would have made them to realize that they had a fundamental duty to aggressively secretly lobby oversight bodies especially Parliament, or the Executive leadership for immediate rectification.

Escalation Protocols: When a specialized agency like NACOC fails to formally ring the alarm, document the compounding risks, or demand the restoration of necessary enforcement powers, it can legally and operationally be interpreted as passive negligence.

Structural and Political Pressures: The writer is aware that based on likely Structural and Political Pressures, Agencies or specialized commissions like NACOC are sometimes forced to comply with broader political or legislative directives that curtail their footprint: But if the withdrawals were mandated by higher external authorities, the leadership of the NACOC is still responsible for formally registering their dissent and providing evidence-based pushback to protect national security borders.

Ultimate Accountability
The writer wishes to acknowledge that President Mahama is a man of high integrity; as such he is doing his honest best for the development of Ghana but some of his appointees are disappointing him. Since the buck stops with the President, hence as the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, as a Leader he needs to accept the blame for the failure of NACOC to put up proactive measures, so he must demo Military leadership as the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, so bold and decided/decisive actions would ensure his appointees follow the leader because the leader has zero tolerance for negligence.

The seemingly too much laxity and or unprofessional acts by Security are the reason this author is calling for action by the President since Ghana is with a laudable Reset Agenda of the current regime, which saw the declaration of water bodies /rivers and Forest areas as Red Zones in 2025/still declared as such and Blue River Guards were/are expected to be monitoring the state of affairs at the expense of the tax payer for remedial action by NAIMOS. Yet Illegal mining activities including participation of Chinese were/are reported daily.

Also the fact that the indefatigable Boss of EPA and her team in 2025 were at Anyiankwanta and beyond where they seized some Chafan machines and stopped the manufacturing and sale of Chafan machines (type one leg inclusive) and they were nearly lynched by some illegal miners at one area. Yet an appointee of the President as his direct Rep in a District as DCE caused the collection of operational permits to allow use of Chafan Machine as one leg in a river in his jurisdiction.

When confronted, he had the audacity to give an excuse that the system existed for more than 20 years or so. So he was just maintaining the status qou, hence not a leader or he was not following the President.

The above details tell that some of the appointees lack leadership attributes and competencies. Why this man connected with levy story on Chafan machines termed as he one leg is still at post gives a wrong signal that his appointees would continue to give excuses of their negligence or disobedience of residential orders. The situation may be worst next year.

So the President needs to act decidedly and decisively to let the heads of an affected agency, the board and top executive herein that of NACOC to note that they bear final responsibility for the operational failures, security breaches, or lapses in oversight that allowed the current scandal to happen and not the muddle the waters with past incidents.

Restoring Public Trust:
A high-profile "cocaine saga" severely damages the credibility of a national drug enforcement agency. Replacing top leadership is often seen as a necessary first step to restore both local international public confidence and signal a zero-tolerance policy toward gross negligence/ incompetence or corruption.

Preventing Institutional Compromise:
The swift action in arresting some suspects due to suspicion of systemic corruption or collusion within the agency, suggest the need for the removal of the top tier to allow for an independent investigation and a clean break from the past.

Leader and Manager
The Board and the Director General of NACOC are leaders and not Managers. It must be noted that there are vast differences between a leader and Manager. A Leader takes Proactive and positive actions, to enable the team to achieve greater productivity. Leaders conduct risk survey to bring or for control measures or changes after the risk assessment if necessary. Hence Leaders are change agents. They don’t try and replicate (copy) anyone else.

Managers on the other hand maintain the status quo. Leaders see their mission to “manage their process and grow or develop their people. Whilst the Managers see their mission as “to manage their people. So Managers or some Commanders are normally comfortable with their positional designations. Leadership will ensure to understand the strategic environment, be able to think critically and creatively, visualize solutions, and describe and communicate crucial information to achieve shared understanding, motivate collaboration and team building.

In a very sensitive institution like some Security Agencies, the attributes required are the same as the Military especially the Army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honour, integrity, and personal courage. Where life or death decisions making is required or where when the decision-making process becomes stale, requires the autocratic Army or Military Leadership style. With the leader expected to be the decision maker, issue mission statements, clear directions, and the goals to the subordinates. Successful autocratic leaders respect their subordinates, communicate effectively, and listen to opinions.

Parliamentary Inquiry
John F Kennedy ever said that ‘Let us not Despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican (herein NPP) answer or the Democrat (herein NDC) answer, but seek for the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility’. The Core message is that henceforth a Bipartisanship or nationalistic position for practical solutions matter more than political labels or blames.

Under the Fourth Republic, the Minority Group in Parliament played as the true voice of the people hence, the call for Parliamentary Inquiry by the Mighty Minority Group in Parliament or the call for Presidential Commission by some CSOs on this matter of serious national and international interest is the right way to deal with this cocaine saga that has brought both local and international embarrassment. The call will be a compliance with Article 278 of the Constitution. This does not mean that there should be no legal prosecution of suspects by using the criminal process without depending on the report of the Commission of Inquiry COI.

COI is very important since, Court action can take donkey years; also COI is very important since related officials of the previous regime would be invited to speak on the related matters and to collaborate with the Executive to ensure the appropriate remedial actions. It will help generate or rekindle Public Confidence in NACOC

Cocaine
Cocaine comes from South America Countries like Columbia, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador etc. Hence smuggling by sea to Ghana especially at Takoradi Harbor, Fishing Ports, or simply along the Coast is expected. It is extracted from the coca plant as the most stimulant of natural origin. It can be snorted by inhaling Cocaine powder through the nose or smoked through inhaling cocaine vapor into the lungs and absorbed into the bloodstream. Otherwise injected into the blood stream.

Cocaine War
General Combat; Governments and Security Agencies use combination of ways in the Cocaine war. These include tougher laws, judicial cooperation, seizure of assets, military patrols and combating / intelligence war, financial tracking to freeze cartel assets, tracking money laundering and cut of the access to banking system, and public health strategies to fight transnational drug cartels.

Intelligence War: There is always a dangerous cat-and-mouse dynamics between sophisticated Cocaine or Narcotic Drug Cartel and Port Security. So, the combating of Cocaine or Narcotic Drugs by Nations is normally, an Intelligence War between the Drug Cartels and Law Enforcement Agencies, in Ghana especially by Narcotic Control Commission (NACOC). It this Intelligence War that is normally described or depicted as a dangerous Cat and Mouse Game between them.

The law Enforcement Agency says Narcotic Control Commission (NACOC) as the Cat employs intelligence tactics (system) by monitoring and scenting the movements and scents of the Mouse, whilst the International Cartel with smuggling networks as the mouse constantly scouting for procedure gaps to dodge the Cat or human vulnerabilities at shipping hubs to dodge or compromise the Cat and slip their products through.

Intelligence anti-narcotic agencies like NACOC as Cats spend months quietly monitoring credit card trails, wiretaps, the conduct of persons at Ports/ along the Coast etc and checking suspicious movements of containers, communications and waiting for the right time to spring a trap. With the Cartels as the mice constantly shift their tactics by hiding drug in everything from charcoal and plastic waste to food shipments or using complex networks of courier to stay one step ahead of the cat.

Intelligent Security workings like the tactical operations of the Cat is not static, it varies, involving cooperation between the security agencies and the public, patrolling, covert operations, use of special dogs, special scanners etc.

So, responses to likely massive breaches by the mice or the Cartel include constantly changing of tactics by rewriting rules from changing monitoring to direct cargo screening or using both to catch the mice before the containers ever leave the port. So the story that there was no NACOC staff at the Port should sound strange to any Student of Risk Management or a seasoned Security Operator, hence it suggests a very poor security work by NACOC.

Presidential Action
Political groupings, may trade spin (opinion) and point fingers with the usual equalizations and thus derailing or abusing or harming the Resetting Agenda as being championed by His Excellency President Mahama to change the negative narratives to positive narratives. Through thinking positive, thinking big and acting diligently with integrity. The President with his laudable Reset Agenda needs to reset the minds of his appointees, civil servants and citizens so he needs to act as recommended.

Conclusion
In the 2024 Presidential Election, Ghanaians voted for a Reset Agenda. Among others to include the requirements of Probity (Honesty. Consistency, Loyalty, Dependability etc) Transparency (Openness Sunshine etc), Accountability (Answerability, Responsibility, Liability etc) Inclusivity, Fairness etc as presented to the voters. These requirements imply a change of the past narrative through needs for Patriotism, Honesty, Discipline, Humility, to some extent well-informed persons, hence a Positive Mindset Revolution.

So the explanation given to the whole World that the likely contributing factor was the lowering of security standards at the Port that contributed to the cocaine smuggling breakthrough is not acceptable, it suggests negligence by a Leader.

The narrative on the cocaine saga should be driven by intellect and not emotion. Hence the kwaku ananse story on the alleged security changes at the Port in 2018 contributed to the cocaine smuggling breakthrough should not be repeated by reasonable persons say Hon MPs/members of the Intelligentsia Community and Seasoned Security Players.

Since a competent security team hence the Board and Management of NACOC, immediately they took over in 2025 and from time to time or as and when necessary especially with Ghana was duly informed of the 320k of Methamphetamine incidents/sagas in June 2026, hence before the France cocaine saga in September 2026 etc were/are required by Risk Management System or Security System to review the Yearly Security Incidents for the last 5 to 10 years, with the view to reviewing the Policy and Standing Operations Procedures (SOP) and up their game as cats to catch the mice.