The Drug Episode

Cocaine

We are nowhere near the end of the politicisation of crime in this country, especially international drug trafficking. Not when serial calling has graduated into a political industry with indirect funding from the state coffers through the ruling party.

Had the originators of the political pastime envisaged a time when the pendulum would swing to their end, perhaps, they would have been moderate in the hurling of invectives.

Now it is their turn and the stupidity of slinging innuendos at the other side of the divide, when the unfortunate exposure of a drug trafficking comes to the fore, has once more dawned on all of us.

The Solomon Adelaquaye episode has landed us, once more, in a protracted case of political give-and-take in the media with an assortment of experts taking their turn with explanations and advice on what to do.

While some have called for a sincere probing of the case, given the fact that the man in the eye of the storm currently in the net of the US law enforcement system runs the security company in charge of the Kotoka International Airport, strangely, others would rather the media ado about the subject was shelved.

Yesterday Dr. Kwesi Aning, a security expert at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Centre, who falls into this category of experts, sneered at the public discourse on the subject. He described those calling for a probe into the issue as pursuing a narrow approach to a gargantuan security ailment.

While we could not doubt his pain at the sorry state the drug menace has plunged the country into, we are unhappy that he sought to have us avoid discussing the issue at all because such discussions are to him unproductive.

His opinion on the fractious subject when he fielded questions on it yesterday was a futile attempt at pouring cold water on the public discourse the subject has ignited, since the story found space on the pages of newspapers last week.

It would be preposterous to expect the largest opposition party and civil society bodies to fold their arms and pretend that there is no unusualness in a drug-studded businessman's company providing security in the country's major international airport.

It is difficult for us to buy his bi-partisan module as a means of addressing the problem because that can never be a cut-and-dry affair.

We do not know of any such bi-partisan system in the country which has succeeded in addressing a major socio-economic challenge of the magnitude of the drug menace.

If only Dr. Anning had been a bit brusque and reduced the diplomacy in his submission, he would have won many hearts including ours. He chose rather to avoid being hard on the issue under review as if the serious goof of okaying a member of an international drug cartel's company managing security at the country's major exit and arrival facility is not bad enough to warrant a national discussion.