....With Iran And Nigeria

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

The recent exponential upsurge in contraband scandals may well have a lot to do with a National Democratic Congress government that seems to have signaled all manner of entrepreneurial crooks and scam-artists that Ghana is open for business, without any due regard for the legitimate rules of commercial engagement.

For my part, though, what is worrisome is the fact that it eerily appears that anytime that President John Dramani Mahama talks about the need for Ghana to "deepen relations" with any particular country, some sort of epic scandal involving nationals of the country in question springs up somewhere. On the latter count, there have been at least two instances in recent weeks. For instance, not long after President Mahama publicly spoke about the need for Ghana to deepen diplomatic, economic and cultural ties with Iran, a Turkish-owned jet was impounded at the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul that was reported to have been carrying on-board a humongous 1.5 tons of gold bars valued at between $ 50 million and $ 80 million, depending on who was telling the story.

We have already extensively written about the foregoing story, and so we do not intend to belabour the same in this piece. Suffice it to observe here, at least in passing, that the aforesaid quantity of Ghanaian gold was only impounded by the Turkish authorities only because the pilot of the Tripoli-originated plane and his crew could not produce the relevant documents covering their Iran-bound mineral cargo. But that the initial reaction of the Mahama government, when the Turkish media first broke the story, was to vehemently deny the fact that the alleged contraband was Ghanaian-owned, but rather sought to cynically fault its political opponents for making up the story in order to villiy the National Democratic Congress, reveals more about the fact that this epic racket may well have been orchestrated by players operating at the highest levels of the Mahama government.

At the time of this writing (3/3/13), the Deputy Director of the Geological Survery Department, a government-run agency, and another staff member of the same institution, were reported to have been arrested and held in police custody. Then also, two key operatives of a privately owned Ghanaian mining company were reported to have been arrested and detained while criminal investigations continued. We must also quickly point out that unless well-meaning Ghanaians studiously follow legal and judicial events surrounding the foregoing case, the outcome may yet farcically replicate the Woyome circus act that continues to provoke the righteous indignation of many a hardworking but poorly remunerated Ghanaian public servant.

Anyway, the second instance of President Mahama's call for "deeper relations" between Ghana and another country resulting in an epic heist, came at the end of February this year. In that instance, the country involved was Nigeria. Two or three days later, two Nigerian nationals, one of whom claimed to have resided in Ghana for some two decades, were arrested in the nation's port and industrial city of Tema and charged with having imported a huge quantity of cocaine, mischievously disguised as cosmetics, specifically Bolivia-manufactured shampoo, with a street value of at least $ 12 million (See "NACOB Arrest[s] Two Nigerians Over $12 Million Cocaine" Daily Graphic 2/25/13).

The suggestion here is in no way to either directly or indirectly implicate any known or unknown elements in the Mahama-Arthur government of the National Democratic Congress. It is simply to highlight the eerily and patently ominous and caution the government against its seemingly inordinate penchant for "deepening relations" with countries whose interests and aspirations may not necessarily gibe with our own, or be any positive or meaningful towards the socioeconomic and cultural development of Ghana. This is simply a proverbial word to the wise, of course.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
March 3, 2013
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