The Founding President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has called for a fundamental shift in Ghana’s approach to combating cocaine trafficking, arguing that the country’s response must focus on dismantling international organised crime networks rather than reducing the issue to partisan politics.
According to Mr Cudjoe, the major beneficiaries and operators behind the cocaine trade are international organised criminal networks whose activities extend beyond Ghana’s political environment.
He said the focus of the national conversation should therefore be on identifying how narcotics enter Ghana, how they move through the country and how they eventually leave, stressing that Ghana’s role as a transit point makes both the “in” and the “out” equally important.
In a commentary titled “The Last Word on Cocaine Politics – Wise Words from an IMANI Sage,” Mr Cudjoe argued that Ghana’s narcotics challenge should be treated as a systemic security and intelligence problem.
Mr Cudjoe maintained that Ghana is undoubtedly used as a transit point for narcotics, explaining that the word “transit” necessarily involves movement in both directions.
He questioned why public discussions often concentrate on drugs leaving Ghana without giving equal attention to how the substances enter the country in the first place.
“Undoubtedly Ghana is a transit. And transit means a corridor; in and out. The ‘in’ is equally very important as well as the ‘out’,” he wrote.
He argued that understanding the entire supply chain would be critical to disrupting the networks responsible for international narcotics trafficking.
Mr Cudjoe further rejected what he described as an excessive focus on political parties in discussions surrounding narcotics seizures.
He said the challenge should primarily be examined through the lens of systemic weaknesses that organised criminals exploit.
According to him, political administrations may change, but the systems and vulnerabilities exploited by organised criminal networks can remain.
“The politics will go but the system remains because of the ‘organised crime’,” he stated.
He described the criminal networks involved as extensive and highly interconnected, arguing that their operations should not be viewed simply through the activities of individual political actors or parties.
Mr Cudjoe said concentrating exclusively on the NPP, NDC or other political groupings could ultimately distract attention from the criminal networks that benefit from weaknesses within the system.
The IMANI Africa founder also called for Ghanaian authorities to learn from cocaine seizures made in other jurisdictions.
He argued that whenever cocaine shipments linked to Ghana are intercepted anywhere in the world, authorities should examine the circumstances surrounding those seizures for intelligence that could help strengthen Ghana’s own security systems.
He welcomed the seizure of large quantities of cocaine associated with Ghanaian supply chains, saying the loss of such consignments represents a disruption to criminal networks rather than evidence that Ghana should automatically be labelled a “cocaine coast.”
“Are you not happy that 4T of cocaine was shipped out of Ghana stocks? I am happy with it. It does not make Ghana a cocaine coast,” he wrote.
Using the analogy of Swiss cheese, Mr Cudjoe said security agencies should identify and progressively close the various loopholes through which organised criminals operate.
“Like Swiss cheese, you plug the holes it went through. Gradually, gradually the holes will cease to open,” he said.
Mr Cudjoe also challenged the practice of placing extremely high monetary values on seized cocaine based on estimated street or market prices.
He argued that cocaine that has been intercepted before reaching its intended market effectively has no realised commercial value to the traffickers.
“Cocaine has no value until it is consumed. When arrested the value is zero,” he wrote.
He suggested that authorities and the public should place greater emphasis on the weight and quantity of narcotics seized rather than speculative market valuations.
He warned that repeated multiplication of estimated market values could produce figures that become detached from the actual economic value of the seized substance.
A major part of Mr Cudjoe’s proposal concerns security and intelligence operations at Ghana’s ports and airports.
He questioned the visibility of uniformed personnel of the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) at ports and argued that narcotics enforcement should place greater emphasis on intelligence gathering and covert operations.
“Take off the uniformed NACOC personnel parambulating freely at the ports,” he stated, arguing that NACOC should function primarily as an intelligence institution rather than appear as a conventional uniformed force.
He also questioned the effectiveness of visible security arrangements at major entry and exit points, arguing that organised criminal networks could exploit predictable security routines.
Mr Cudjoe raised concerns about the presence of people who are not passengers but regularly operate within port and airport environments.
He argued that the authorities should pay closer attention to individuals who have legitimate or semi-legitimate reasons to access restricted areas because such access could potentially be exploited by organised criminal networks.
According to him, facilitation activities around ports and airports require stronger monitoring because organised crime depends on networks of people who can assist with logistics, access and movement.
He further alleged that off-duty security personnel can sometimes be found within port environments and warehouses, and proposed stronger electronic monitoring of personnel movement.
To address the issue, Mr Cudjoe suggested that all security personnel assigned to sensitive port and airport environments should be required to electronically clock in and out.
He argued that such a system should be connected to the headquarters of the relevant security service so that authorities can maintain a reliable record of who is present within sensitive locations at any given time.
“Every service personnel duty or off duty should clock. And that clock should trigger at their headquarters,” he proposed.
He said such measures would help authorities identify unusual patterns of access and movement while strengthening accountability within the security architecture.
Mr Cudjoe also urged law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to expand their surveillance and intelligence-gathering activities beyond conventional locations.
He claimed that cocaine is often kept within heavily secured properties in affluent communities and suggested that intelligence agencies should use available identification and intelligence systems to profile individuals and locations considered relevant to narcotics investigations.
He specifically mentioned the Ghana Card as a potential starting point for strengthening identification and intelligence processes.
Mr Cudjoe further warned that the cocaine trafficking challenge could resurface as Ghana approaches the 2028 general elections.
He argued that periods associated with elections, changes in government and end-of-year holidays can create distractions and potentially reduce the effectiveness of security arrangements.
He specifically pointed to November and December as periods that could present vulnerabilities because of holidays, political activity and changes in government.
He described the period around the transition from one administration to another as one requiring particular vigilance.
According to him, criminal networks can exploit periods when attention is diverted toward political activity.
Mr Cudjoe insisted that the narcotics challenge should not be reduced to a contest between political parties or ideological groups.
“It has nothing to do with NPP NDC UP IMANI etc. It is organised crime,” he stated.
His central argument is that Ghana’s response must focus on understanding and dismantling the networks that facilitate the movement of narcotics through the country.
He called for greater emphasis on intelligence-led policing, tighter monitoring of ports and airports, improved personnel accountability, identification of security loopholes and stronger cooperation between Ghanaian authorities and international agencies.
Mr Cudjoe’s comments come amid heightened public discussion about cocaine trafficking, narcotics seizures and the effectiveness of Ghana’s security and intelligence systems.
While his proposals are presented as a call for a broader systemic response, the specific allegations and operational recommendations require assessment by the relevant security agencies and other competent authorities.
By 1960news.com
