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

The vehement denial by the legally embattled government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), that a 1.5 ton-gold cache impounded by Turkish aviation authorities had not originated from Ghana ought to raise more than eyebrows (See "Gov't: No Gold from Ghana Seized in Turkey" Peacefmonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 1/28/13). It ought to raise more than mere eyebrows because the representative of President Mahama who registered such curious denial has proven in less than two months at his post that he has absolutely no credibility.

And on the foregoing score must promptly be recalled the fact that it was the same Mr. John Jinapor who vehemently denied on national television that President Mahama had absolutely no knowledge of the renowned American gay rights activist and novelist Mr. Andrew Solomon, let alone claim the latter as his friend or even acquaintance, only to have Mr. Mahama deny Mr. Jinapor's denial in less than 24 hours later.

And by the way, Mr. Mahama did not any remarkably redeem his own tattered credibility, having publicly and mordantly denounced homosexuality as a criminally culpable offence, only to turn round a day later to reverse himself with a phone call to Mr. Solomon in which the Ghanaian leader was reported to have profusely apologized to his longtime American friend and former host.

The strange case of the Iran-bound 1.5 tons of gold also raises several questions about the caliber of Ghanaian journalism, particularly when the privately-owned Fm radio station, Peacefm, curiously sought to portray the original news report that carried this possible mega-heist of our precious national resource as the especial manufacture of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party.

But even as the head of the Accra-based Danquah Institute aptly intimated, the news of the impounding of the 1.5 tons of gold, allegedly squirreled out of the country illegally, was originally carried by the Turkish national news agency and then subsequently picked up by other highly credible media organizations in the international community, largely here in the West, of course.

You see, what makes the Mahama government's vehement denial very worrisome is the unmistakable impression that, somehow, the Turkish aviation authorities who first reported the discovery of the mineral contraband and their prompt seizure of the same may have been high on drugs, or some such narcotic, when they reported their interception to the international media.

For those of our readers who may have forgotten the salient details about the report, the 1.5 tons of gold was impounded as a result of the pilot of the Turkish-owned cargo plane and his crew's inability to produce the requisite documents covering the same. Now, rather than promise to rigorously investigate this epic scandal of global proportions, the Mahama government's predictable reaction has been to vehemently deny the report and hope that most Ghanaians are either too gullible or naive and amnesiac to keep track of their stolen wealth. And this is precisely what makes the NDC government's reaction to the report all the more curious, to speak much less about the unpardonably flagrant and outright criminal.

You see, chances are that the Mahama government is up to its neck deeply involved in this epic outrage, or the government is simply run by a bevy of the morally bankrupt, kleptocratically corrupt and downright nihilistic to make it worthy of public trust and respect. It would also be interesting for Mr. Jinapor to apprise Ghanaians of the medium in which the government routinely settles its foreign debts and obligations. I can guess right off the bat, here, that the Mahama wag is apt to claim that, indeed, the NDC government routinely settles our national debt with rice-and-beans harvested from the Iranian-underwritten Tamale plantation, wherever that may be.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Feb. 10, 2013
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