Treat drug barons as individuals with no political colours- Sir John

The General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party is confident the drug menace hanging as an albatross on the necks of various governments can be overcome.

However, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie says the fight can be won if only drug barons are treated as individuals with no political colours.

“As long as this country stops politicizing every issue to do with drugs, we can fight it. If we see people dealing with it, we should see them as individuals and not cloth them with party cloths. Once we stop tagging people as NDC/ NPP, then we can get on with it. But until such time, we will continue to play the political football like we doing now” Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, also known as Sir John said on Xfm’s big bite show Thursday December 15, 2011.

His comments follow the disappearance of 1,020 grams of cocaine in an Accra Circuit Court’s exhibit room.

Sir John opines that the mystery can be unraveled if politicians will “allow the courts to work instead of politicizing any arrest”, adding, “then we can move forward in terms of that”.

That notwithstanding, he says it is prudent the NDC government is reminded “of the fact that there is no need for people to be playing politics with substances or drug matters that is beyond the ambit of government”.

Sir John also took a swipe at the NDC government, blaming it for the upsurge in the drug menace. According to him, the NDC should tackle the problem head-on since they “patted themselves on the back” when the menace had allegedly died down.

“The truth is that this government is not on top of the drug issue and its related matters. Since the assumption of the Mills/ Mahama administration, dealings in drugs have skyrocketed and Ghana is awashed with d????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????r polls conducted during the 2008 elections showed a close race which is an indicative that the 2012 general elections might revoing down, they patted themselves on the back, now that it is on the ascendancy; they want to put the blame on somebody. I believe that government should take the blame as it rightly should so we move on with our lives”.

“During the three years of Mills administration, more people have been arrested than any other period in the history of our politics and I believe that this government has its hand in the drug trade. They cannot run away from that”.