A security analyst with the Kofi Annan Peace Keeping Training Centre, Dr. Kwesi Aning has called on Parliament to enact a law that would make narcotic trade in Ghana a national security threat.
According to Dr. Aning, �Until Parliament enacts a law that says that narcotics trafficking is a national security threat that then allows (NACOB boss)Akrasi Sarpong and his team to use alternative methods for extracting information" Ghana would lose the fight against the drug trade.
Dr. Aning is also of the view that if government really wants to arrest the big drug barons or the �big fish� who ply the drug trade, alternative methods including �chemical methods� to extract information from whoever is arrested in connection with the narcotics trade is a must.
He was sharing his thoughts on the arrest of some 15 persons believed to be staff of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), National Security and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) at the Kotoka International Airport within the last couple of weeks.
Some of the suspects arrested include Jerry, Fati, Akufo, Emmanuel, Timothy, Dennis and Mubarak who are all staff of either NACOB, BNI or the National Security.
Speaking on Citi Eyewitness News, the security analyst noted that Ghana the Executive Secretary of NACOB, Akrasi Sarpong, "and his team must be given the tools to be able to operationalise their rhetoric about the drug trade.
�For the past 15 to 20 years, the talk has just been world class but you know and I know that we not just talking about narcotics, in Ghana we are now talking about �Narco-terrorism� in which Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb know that we are badly infiltrated, know that the narcotics are coming in and that terrorists are coming down to Accra and other West African countries to attempt to buy narcotics in large quantities to carry across the Sahara�.
Dr. Aning however described the infiltration of narcotics into Ghana as �unfortunate� indicating that �it was only a matter of time that the front line institution itself mandated to fight this canker would also be infiltrated because getting into NACOB and getting access into information and operational plans would be a major coup.
"So this is unfortunate for Ghana, it just shows that we have a long way to go but it is a good start".
He advised that NACOB would have to start �re-screening, checking people's backgrounds, where their contacts are, bank accounts, all those things.
�If we do not make those inter linkages, we would be fighting in vain�.
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