NPP Exploiting Drug Addict

NPP EXPLOITING DRUG ADDICT FRANK BENNEH, FOR POLITICAL GAIN

On Monday December 1, 2008 I read with awe and disbelief, one of the many falsehoods that the failed NPP government has been peddling in an attempt to misinform Ghanaian voters who are poised to vote them out due to their complicity in the narcotic drug menace which has engulfed our motherland. In an article posted by the pro NPP “ethics-less” Daily Guide News paper on Ghanaweb with the title “Benneh reveals NDC cocaine scandal”, the paper sought to imply that Frank Benneh, who is generally known within the Ghanaian intelligence community as a disgraced drug addict/ user, was selling narcotic drugs for the NDC at the time of his arrest. The Daily Guide story is absolutely false.

Frank Benneh has never been an NDC operative, and will never become one. The story is one of the many malicious and vexatious orchestrated attempts by the failed NPP to score cheap political points.

Now, I BQ (as I was known by my co-Intelligence operatives) wants to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth because I have deep seated convictions that Ghanaians deserve better than the falsehood, and myopic stories that the failed NPP has been telling them.

Frank Benneh, like thousands of Ghanaian tax payers’ educated individuals (doctors, lawyers, bankers, nurses, politicians, lecturers, etc) who have been afflicted by the narcotic drug menace has a personal problem with drug addiction and was among those who were helped in diverse rehabilitative ways by the Ghana Narcotics Control Board, the Ministry of Health, and other affiliated institutions to change for the better but without success. This is the undisputable truth.

Indeed it is true that Frank Benneh was a Career Diplomat. It is also true that he was attached to the Ghana permanent Mission at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. What the NPP propagandists failed to tell Ghanaians is that Frank Benneh was arrested by the Swiss anti narcotics undercover agents after he had been placed on surveillance for several months, identified, and tagged as a drug addict/user and not a drug dealer/baron. Frank Benneh himself knows this fact and has never denied the fact that he had, and continues to have a personal grave for cocaine and heroin addiction which he kept to himself for years prior to his arrest. He was therefore a victim of drug/substance abuse, and not a drug baron as he is now being coached by the NPP propagandists to say.

According to our intelligence operatives in Switzerland who monitored Frank Benneh, they spotted him on several occasions and locations which were known by the intelligence community as the rendezvous for drug addicts. Benneh was seen on more than one occasion, physically sniffing cocaine and heroin with other addicts. According to the reports from our Swiss operatives, the undercover agents who had then infiltrated into the ranks of the drug addicts ring of which Benneh was one, closed in on him not because he was identified as a drug dealer/baron and therefore a supplier, but mainly because he was a user and an addict.

Long before his arrest, Frank Benneh’s wife who was also in Switzerland and was living together with Benneh and their two children had long been suspicious of her husband’s drug habit. She first confided in two of Benneh’s colleagues at post and later lodged an official compliant with the Ghanaian Head of Mission in Geneva. However, several attempts to confront Frank Benneh proved unsuccessful because on each occasion, Benneh proved defiant and dismissible of the fact that he was addicted to the use of cocaine and heroin. On more than one occasion, prior to his arrest, Frank Benneh was reprimanded by his immediate supervisor when his cocaine and heroin addiction became obvious. However, since he kept denying the facts, he was given the benefit of doubt. These are all facts which are known to many local intelligence, and diplomatic (Foreign Service) operatives both in Ghana and other locations.

If Frank Benneh were not to be a Diplomat at the time, he would probably and fittingly have been classified as (a junky) one of the many street level drug addicts like the thousands we see daily in places like Tudu, Accra New Town, Ashtown, Tema Community Two all in Ghana and many such locations in other parts of Switzerland. These people including Frank Benneh are not drug dealers/barons; they are drug addicts/users. They are victims of the inhumane, illicit, and barbaric narcotic drug trade which is the stock in trade of the Kuffuor led NPP government in Ghana.

What necessitated Frank Benneh’s arrest was that on one occasion, he was so desperate to replenish his drug dose for the day but had no money to buy. According to Benneh his fellow drug addicts who had been passing him bits and bites were getting angered by his inability to provide when it was his turn to do so, as is the practice within the “junkies family”. All this while, Frank Benneh did not know that some of the people he was buying and sniffing cocaine and heroin with were undercover agents. On that fateful day of his arrest, and due to his acute dependency on cocaine and heroin, Frank Benneh unashamedly used his diplomatic passport as a security deposit for a usable amount of heroin because according to him, he needed it badly to use and had no option.

The undercover agent who physically and personally received the passport from Benneh in exchange for the heroin recounted that, he (Benneh) was so desperate and impatient to collect the drugs and did not care about the repercussions. After collecting the heroin Benneh told the agent to keep the passport until he send cash later in the week to redeem it. He then retreated, joined his drug addict colleagues who were waiting a distance away, and started using the drugs with them. While they were still sharing and using the heroin, they were all rounded up by the agents. Soon after Benneh’s arrest, he openly identified himself as a diplomat and attempted to invoke his diplomatic immunity but his wishes were turned down by the Swiss officials. All these encounters between Benneh, and the undercover agents were audio taped. Prior to this day some of Benneh’s encounters with the other drug addicts were electronically recorded and photographed as well by the undercover agents.

After their arrest, Benneh and his accomplices were escorted to the anti narcotic squad bureau in Geneva for further processing. The Charge the Affairs of the Ghana’s mission in Geneva was notified about Benneh’s arrest. The office in turn informed the Ghana Ministry of Foreign Affairs and for that matter, the government of Ghana.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs referred Benneh’s brief (the official preliminary information about the arrest) to the Narcotics Control Board (Ministry of Interior) which was then headed by my former boss Honorable Kofi Bentum Quantson, the National Security Coordinator at the time. Mr Quantson, who is arguably one of the smartest Intelligence czars in the history of Ghana, subsequently assembled a team of intelligence officials under his direct supervision to investigate the case.

After several interactions, and coordination between the Swiss intelligence authorities and their Ghanaian counterpart, Mr. K.B. Quantson, Honorable Martin Amidu, the then Deputy Attorney General and Minister for Justice, and one intelligence operative from the NACOB anti-narcotic investigations unit who is referred to as LAYER by his colleagues were dispatched to Geneva, Switzerland for further investigations. After preliminary investigations in Geneva, the Swiss anti- narcotics squad handed over suspect Frank Benneh, whose diplomatic status had been stripped after his arrest together with all the evidence in connection with the case to the Ghanaian team. This took place after a Swiss Judge, sitting in a court of competent jurisdiction had ruled according to Swiss law for Benneh’s deportation to Ghana.

When Frank Benneh was brought back to Ghana, he was duly processed by the NACOB, BNI, and CID and subsequently put before an Accra High Court for prosecution. During this period Frank Benneh made personal confessions during interrogation sessions of which I was personally present on numerous occasions about his drug addiction and his obsession for his cocaine and heroin. His wife, who was later brought down to Ghana also confirmed her husband’s drug problems throughout our interrogation sessions. All our investigations were carried out with the involvement of Benneh’s defense lawyers, his wife, and his extended family members. There was not a single occasion when Frank Brenneh mentioned the NDC government or any previous government as his accomplice or agent. Neither did he mention any government official as his accomplice or as the one who introduced him to narcotic drug use.

It is on record that days after Frank Benneh was granted court bail by the Accra High Court, he was spotted by intelligence operatives on many occasions in the company of drug addicts around Tudu and Accra New Town in Accra. On one such occasion, Frank Benneh was once again arrested by the Accra Central CID during a police swoop at Tudu in the company of drug addicts. I wish Kwaku Baako and his team of pro NPP Journalists will cross check these facts from the court, NACOB, BNI, CID and Benneh’s family.

From all intent and purpose, Frank Benneh was a drug addict and still may be a drug addict. It is never true that he was arrested in Geneva for facilitating drug business for the NDC and for that matter, the government of Ghana at the time of his arrest. He was put on surveillance, monitored, identified, and arrested as a drug addict/user by the Swiss anti narcotics undercover agents. There are mounting bodies of evidence to prove that Frank Benneh was a drug addict/user and not a drug baron/dealer as he is now singing on NPP political campaign platforms. The NPP propagandists are comfortable with the lies he is telling because after all, he is one of their own and. When they speak, they exhibit their nature which is falsehood. In spite of that, truth shall always prevail over falsehood, no matter how long it takes.

The good old book says that “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. Fellow Ghanaians, live and stand for the truth and vote for true and honest change for a better Ghana. Fear naught, for change is on the way. INSHA - ALAAHU. YERESESAMU!!

By: Concerned Citizen: Massachusetts, USA.