NDC hits back at NPP over Nayele
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has hit back at the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for what it described as its desperate move to link the government to the Nayele Ametefe cocaine affair.
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It stated categorically that the "cocaine baroness" did not have any affiliation with either the President or the NDC, as being suggested by the NPP.
At a news conference organised by the NDC at its headquarters in Accra yesterday, the party's General Secretary, Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah, said on the other hand, it was all clear that the woman, by her own admission in court, started her illegal business during the NPP administration and for which reason the opposition party had questions to answer.
Mounting a strong defence of the NDC's untainted record of fighting the drug business, the chief scribe said “Actions of the NDC both inside and outside government have demonstrated zero tolerance for the drug business".
False claims
Systematically, the General Secretary took the fight to their main political opponents, giving a chronology of " false claims" the NPP had made since the arrest of Nayele.
One of such false claims was the posting of the picture of a known NDC member who played crucial role in the 2012 campaign of President John Dramani Mahama on the Internet claiming she was the lady arrested with cocaine in London.
Other false statements allegedly made by the NPP were that Nayele travelled on a Ghanaian diplomatic passport, and also used the VVIP wing of the Kotoka International Airport to board her flight to London.
"Perhaps, the most disingenuous of the fabrications was the one that tried to link the Ghana Mission's staff, which had gone to the Heathrow Airport in London to pick a high powered delegation from Ghana to the scandal," Mr Asiedu-Nketiah said.
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The NDC chief scribe mentioned that another futile attempt was made to misrepresent the intention of the Ghana Mission staff that were sent by the High Commissioner to enquire about the facts of the arrest of a Ghanaian as an attempt to defend Nayele and secure her release.
"To the NPP, the visit of the staff of the Ghana Mission to a suspected drug baroness was conclusive proof that the government of Ghana was condoning the drug trade," he said.
Akufo-Addo's exposition
Mr Asiedu-Nketiah expressed surprise that the NPP had quickly taken a U-turn to what its leader, Nana Akufo-Addo, said in a statement carried by the Ghanaian Times newspaper of May 16, 2005 that every Ghanaian citizen, including suspected drug barons, had the right to consular services.
The NDC general secretary then zoomed in on what he called, "The latest straw that the drowning NPP is now trying to cling on,” which was the content of Nayele's plea of clemency.
He said although the woman claimed she was introduced to the drug business by top politicians in 2004 and had since followed up with such politicians in the business, the NPP decided to shelve the 2004 link and rather talk about the present since the NDC was in power.
NPP complicity
Mr Asiedu-Nketiah also mentioned the series of illicit drug cases, which the NPP were in various ways linked to.
They included the former Member of Parliament, Eric Amoateng's case, the three prominent NPP women, the MV Benjamin case which involved 77 parcels of cocaine which vanished under the watch of the NPP government, and the de-confiscation of properties of convicted drug barons.
These, compared with the NDC's track record in the fight against the cocaine business — which included the passage of all punitive laws against narcotics, the non-implication of any high level NDC member in the illicit trade — had gone to prove the depth of difference between the two major political parties in the drug matters.