Mark Woyongo Needs to Explain This

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 30, 2015
E-mail: [email protected]

I don't particularly have any high regard for the Convention People's Party's breakaway faction the so-called Progressive People's Party (PPP) or its founding-proprietor, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom. I also believe that the overwhelming majority of the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) are an unconscionable bunch of hoodlums and pathological thugs. And this is why I was not the least bit surprised that the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) wing of the Mahama regime would attempt to publicly manhandle and humiliate the Youth Leader of the Progressive People's Party, Mr. Divine Nkrumah, and his deputy, Mr. Nii Armah (See "PPP Youth Leader Seized By NACOB Officials At KIA" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 3/30/15).

We are told that the two men were yanked out of a queue upon their arrival from South Africa, where Messrs. Nkrumah and Armah had attended a conference for youth leaders of political parties in Africa. As of this writing, no official explanation had been given by either NACOB director Yaw Akrasi-Sarpong or Mr. Mark Woyongo, President Mahama's man at the Interior Ministry. But one thing is clear, when NACOB snags you with their net, you can bet your proverbial bottom-dollar that they deem you to be either a contraband kingpin or a certified courier for one.

We are not in any position to presently know why the NACOB operatives at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) allegedly moved in so swiftly on the Youth Leaders of the Progressive People's Party. But what is egregiously clear here is that at the time of their arrest and detention at the KIA, Messrs. Nkrumah and Armah ought to have been read charges pertaining to the necessity for their apprehension and detention. Likewise, they ought to have been given reasons for the decision by the NACOB officials to release them after their being allegedly held for more than two hours. This is how security agents and agencies operate in any constitutional democracy such as Ghana's; they are required and expected to operate as such under the law.

I also don't know whether they knew this, but Messrs. Nkrumah and Armah ought to have promptly demanded to contact their attorneys at the moment of their arrest, and ought to have adamantly refused to talk to or answer any questions from the NACOB officials without the physical presence of their attorneys. And by law, the NACOB officials ought to have allowed them to do so immediately.

I am utterly amused, however, in spite of the soul-cringing indignities that these PPP youth leaders had to endure, when I recall the Nayele Ametefe Scandal, in which the globally infamous Ms. Ruby Adu-Gyamfi (aka "The Cocaine Lady") was allegedly escorted by the same KIA NACOB operatives to smuggle 12.5 kgs of commercial-grade cocaine, using the VVIP- or Presidential Lounge at the Kotoka International Airport, to Great Britain.

If Messrs. Nkrumah and Armah are clear in their conscience that they have absolutely nothing to hide, and they also have no drug-related records of any sort, then they may be better off either filing a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) or, better yet, contacting their attorneys and ensuring that whoever orchestrated their abject maltreatment and very public humiliation at the KIA pays dearly for the same.

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