Illicit Drugs And Politics – The Way Forward Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

By Georgette Dede Djaba, LLM Solicitor, London ,  29 November 2010

I have been extremely fascinated by developments over the past week in Ghana with regard to illicit drugs and Politicians.

On the one hand, in the red corner, we have heard the indefatigable and formidable lawyer and politician, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo stating categorically that he has never done drugs and in the blue corner, Hon. Ama Benyiwa Doe MP, Minster for Central Region stating that all NPP members are drug peddlers.  What is the perception of Ghanaians abroad?

Our community based radio stations in London, in particular Focus Radio were jammed with callers asking Nana to provide a medical report to silence his critics such as the controversial maverick politician/comic Kofi Wayo called for proof of Nana’s assertion by way of blood test and current medical report.  Medical reports are confidential in the UK.

Critical News, 18th October, 2010

By Sydney Casely-Hayford, Sydney@bizghana.com

I took a break to re-group.  I have been back home now for a year this December and I wonder whether we can really change Ghana.  The politicians are our worst nightmare.  Then last week, Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa started to describe he and others in the Mills Government as “the political elite”.  This is at the time when school re-opening has become a complete mess.  If you have followed the news closely, you know that the NDC Government decided to revert to a 3-year term for the SHS period after the NPP had changed it to 4 years during their term.  Wonder Madilo writes a very good piece on this.  But what has happened this past week is just appalling.  First year students have no beds to sleep on, no desks, no chairs.  Government promised with gusto that they would have everything in place before the school term starts.  Now the Ghana Education Service has advised the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) to charge a Ghc100-300 fee for all new admissions and convert other facilities to dormitories while the government gets its act together.  But I heard all the advice for the dos and don’ts of 3-year to 4-year as far back as March this year.  Much ado was made about previous decisions by the NPP government and in the end it all came down to a manifesto decision by the NDC and therefore they changed the law.  Now we have a major mess on our hands.  Sorry! The NDC has a major mess on its hands.  This should be a political game-changing event.  If the NDC comes out of this and wins in 2012 we have to do a lot of analysing.

Critical News, 15th August 2010

We are probably as close to a Constitutional crisis as we are going to get.  The Constitutional Review Committee is going around Ghana soliciting views for amendments to the 1992 constitution. We all know the real reason is to see how we can either continue to entrench or remove the transitional provisions granting immunity to PNDC coup makers and their supporters.  We are just going to spend $1.2 billion doing so.  If we fail to remove the provisions, we don’t get another crack at it for a long time.

Critical News, 8th August 2010

Finally, NDC put the STX deal to bed.  Came at the expense of the Ghanaian voters, who put the NPP parliamentarians in office to debate issues on their behalf, only to find that they walk out of most critical discussions.  The NPP “honourables” have still not got the tactic of filibustering an issue and allowing time to work with them.  They walked out of the final debate in parliament because they could not meet the Speaker’s one hour imposition for final review of the housing deal.  Poor show, they can do better in my opinion!  Now the contract has been passed and all we have to do is wait to see how Government proceeds to build the 30,000 houses for security personnel.  All they could do was wish the Koreans “good luck with this one”