Forty-eight Members of Parliament (MPs) have formally petitioned Speaker Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin to recall Parliament from recess, citing a series of major narcotics seizures linked to Ghana, including a 3.9-tonne cocaine bust in France.

The MPs say the seizures amount to a national security emergency requiring urgent parliamentary oversight.

The memorandum, dated September 18, 2026, and submitted by Habib Iddrisu, First Deputy Minority Whip and MP for Tolon, invokes Article 112(3) of the 1992 Constitution and Order 53 of Parliament’s Standing Orders.

Both provisions allow at least 15% of MPs to compel the Speaker to summon an extraordinary sitting within seven days of receiving the request.

The immediate trigger, according to the memorandum, is the seizure by French customs officers at the Port of Dunkirk on September 10 of nearly 3.9 metric tonnes of cocaine valued at more than US$260 million.

The MPs say the cocaine was concealed in a container of plastic waste that had departed from Ghana.

They want Parliament to establish how the container was processed and exported, which port it left from, what scanning and clearance procedures were applied, and which companies and institutions handled the shipment.

Other narcotics seizures

The memorandum also frames the Dunkirk seizure as the latest in a longer pattern, listing five other major incidents since March 2025.

These include a 3.3-tonne cocaine haul hidden under sand in a tipper truck at Pedu Junction in Cape Coast, with an estimated street value of more than US$350 million.

Another 120-slab cocaine consignment was intercepted on the Takoradi-Cape Coast highway, while 866 parcels of suspected cocaine were found concealed in sacks of gari at a warehouse at Tema Harbour. The latter consignment was valued at about US$6.9 million.

The MPs also cited an unresolved case involving a flight from Gran Canaria that allegedly carried narcotics and undeclared US currency and landed at Kotoka International Airport in March 2025.

They further referenced the MV Sankofa, which was released by the Ghana Maritime Authority after paying a fraction of a nearly GH¢12 million fine without a full cargo inspection. The vessel was later arrested in Senegal carrying narcotics.

Another case involved a 320kg methamphetamine seizure by Australian customs in June 2026. The drugs were concealed in a charcoal shipment traced to Ghana.

Taken together, the MPs say the seizures linked to Ghana under the current administration amount to more than US$1 billion in less than two years.

They also raised concerns about the progress of investigations into some of the cases.

According to the memorandum, more than a year after the Pedu Junction bust, only the driver, a housemaid and a handful of peripheral suspects have been arraigned and remain on bail, while the financiers and principal traffickers behind the shipment have not been identified.

MPs demand parliamentary inquiry

The memorandum calls for a parliamentary inquiry that could summon the Ministers for the Interior, Transport and National Security, as well as officials from the Narcotics Control Commission, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Ghana Revenue Authority, Ghana Immigration Service, National Intelligence Bureau and other security and regulatory agencies.

The MPs want Parliament to examine the extent of cooperation between Ghanaian authorities and their French and other international counterparts.

They also want answers on the adequacy of scanning and surveillance systems at Ghana’s ports and airports, as well as measures being taken to identify the networks behind the trafficking.

The signatories, who include senior MPs such as Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Francis Asenso-Boakye, Dominic Nitiwul and Kingsley Nyarko, stressed that the request is “not to prejudge any person or interfere with ongoing criminal investigations,” but to allow Parliament to exercise its constitutional oversight function.

Under Article 112(3), the Speaker must summon Parliament within seven days of receiving the request.

It was not immediately clear when the sitting would take place, and the Speaker’s office had not issued a public response when the request was filed.