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Opinions of Friday, 16 January 2015

Columnist: The Catalyst

Asiedu Nketia: Could Ruby Cocaine Be Linked To NPP Fundraising Event

Asiedu Nketia: Could Ruby Cocaine Be Linked To NPP Fundraising Event In London?

General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Hon. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, is calling for an investigation into a recent fundraising event in the United Kingdom (UK) by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) vis-à-vis the Nayele Ametefe Cocaine saga.
The NDC General Secretary said the NPP’s fundraising event in London, which took place around the same time that the lady was arrested with an estimated $1.8million worth of the narcotics substance at Heathrow Airport, provides a coincidence that cannot be ignored in the nation’s search for answers in the matter.
According to the NDC Chief Scribe, considering NPP’s track record of the drugs’ trade, the coincidence of its fundraising event in the United Kingdom (UK) at the very time that Nayele, also known as Ruby Adu Gyamfi, was arrested with 12.8 kilograms of cocaine in her failed bid to traffic the drug into that country, raises eyebrows and cannot be swept under the carpet.
Hon. Asiedu Nketia also said that the claim by the incarcerated drug trafficker that she got into contact with powerful politicians in 2004, when the NPP was in power, who introduced her to the drug trade, speaks volumes. He believes that only a thorough investigation will expose the faceless persons/person behind the crime for which Nayele has been jailed 8 years 8 months by a UK court after entering a guilty plea.
The NDC General Secretary was speaking to Nana Yaw Kwakye of Montie FM, a private Accra-based radio station, in a reaction to allegations of NDC’s culpability in the Nayele cocaine saga made by the NPP at a recent press conference addressed by its Director of Communications, Nana Akomea.
He further pointed out that the drug trade and money laundering go concurrently and that he would not be surprised if investigations reveal at the end of the day that the cocaine carried by Nayele actually belongs to some persons in the NPP, whose intention was to sell it in order to sponsor the opposition party’s 2016 campaign and that the fundraising event was only used as a camouflage.
Explaining, Hon. Asiedu Nketia said the Nayele cocaine could be sold and the money deposited safely in a bank in the UK and later transferred to Ghana as proceeds from the NPP fundraising event to be used by the opposition party for its campaign activities.
The NDC General Secretary, who is popularly called General Mosquito, said the NPP engages in politics of “projection” as a “key strategy” by which it diverts attention from its wrongs in an attempt to make its opponents look guilty for wrongs they do not commit.
By this strategy, he said the NPP puts out deliberate lies that its opponents are compelled to keep defending when in actual fact, it is the Akufo-Addo-led opposition party that should be providing such answers to the general public.
He said the NPP has effectively deployed this strategy in the Nayele cocaine saga and has consistently tried to implicate the NDC by compounding all manner of shameful conspiracy theories, adding that the opposition party has kept fabricating lies about the case in a desperate attempt to throw the cocaine mud at President John Dramani Mahama and the NDC government, as it seeks equalisation at all cost.
Hon Asiedu Nketia pointed out how barely a week after the arrest of Nayele at Heathrow Airport, there was a failed attempt by the NPP to make Ghanaians believe that an innocent NDC activist, Francisca Agyei, was the drug trafficker by publishing her picture standing by a Mahama 2012 campaign car.
It would be remembered that a fabricated story, attributed to a nonexistent online media house named ‘West African online,’ surfaced about the involvement of government officials in the Nayele cocaine saga. It was this false story that was accompanied by a picture of Francisca Agyei as attempts were made to link her to the Mahama family failed.
The NDC General Secretary also pointed to what he referred to as, another false claim by the NPP when its media hirelings published a story they culled from an Austrian newspaper, ‘Kronen Zeitung’ claiming that, according to the newspaper, Nayele was caught with a Ghanaian diplomatic passport, which also turned out to be false.
As if this was not enough, there were other publications following Nayele’s first day in the UK court to the effect that the prosecutor told the judge that she had a diplomatic passport. That report also turned out to be false.
Before then, another story appeared on the facebook walls of NPP activists claiming that a newspaper in England, ‘Heathrow News,’ had published that Nayele travelled on a diplomatic passport. This lie was also exposed when it turned out that there is no newspaper in England called ‘Heathrow News.’
Closely on the heels of this was yet another story on the facebook walls of NPP activists claiming Nayele had finally confirmed travelling on a Ghanaian diplomatic passport. The story was sourced to a magazine called ‘Airport International.’ As it turned out, Airport International never published any news item on Nayele.
NPP’s desperate attempt was moved a notch higher when a picture of Nayele, posing by a private jet appeared on the facebook wall of known NPP activists in a clear attempt to link President Mahama’s brother, Ibrahim Mahama to Nayele. This attempt also failed because Ibrahim Mahama’s private jet is Bombardier 604 and not the Gulf Stream G6000 that the NPP activists gleefully posted on their facebook walls.
This was not before there were wild claims by top NPP persons such as Kennedy Agyapong that Nayele was Ibrahim Mahama’s girlfriend, a claim which immediately backfired as it emerged that the NPP MP whose love proposal was turned down by Nayele with an excuse by her that her standard of men was the likes of Ibrahim Mahama. This has also exposed NPP’s lies that Ibrahim Mahama was the one who facilitated the use of the VVIP lounge by Nayele, even though the fact is that she and her accomplices rather used the VIP lounge, made possible by one Alhaji Dawood who is currently standing trial.
General Mosquito also drew attention to how the Mahama government is handling the Nayele cocaine saga such as the numerous arrests made of persons manning the VIP lounge on the day in question and others, daring NPP to show how it dealt with the Amoateng drug case.
Failing in all the above attempts to draw the NDC into the Nayele cocaine saga, the latest claim by the NPP and its media hirelings is that Nayele’s lawyer had said in court that she had links with politicians in the current government, when the fact is that her lawyer actually revealed to the judge that Nayele had come into contact with powerful politicians in 2004, and had since been in the drug trade.
The NDC General Secretary advised the NPP to do an introspection on its drugs profile and put the brakes on the unnecessary and diversionary implication of others in such matters.