GHANAIAN DRUG RINGS DEADLIER THAN NIGERIAN CARTELS

GHANAIAN DRUG RINGS DEADLIER THAN NIGERIAN CARTELS

BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKU.

APART FROM HUMAN BEINGS,IT IS NOW BEEN DISCLOSED AS AT PRESS TIME THAT ARIK AIRLINES ALSO HELP TO FERRY COCAINE ACROSS BORDER

Ghanaians have been described as more deft in the art of trafficking in hard drugs than their Nigerian counterparts .

In a check by Paedia Express Multimedia in Lagos,Nigeria,it was  discovered that an average Ghanaian drug dealer had an attribute of staying under cover thus undetected by law enforcement agents wherever they operate.

An impeccable source who was nearly recruited to join  an underground cell of a deadly Ghanaian drug ring in the United Kingdom over a decade ago  claimed that  narcotic officials find it difficult to track Ghanaians down because they do not go to parties or night clubs  to spend money crazily in the open for musicians like most Nigerian  successful drug peddlers do all over the world.

He revealed exclusively that the Ghanaian drug lord that wanted to recruit him in the United Kingdom about a decade ago  was just 21 years of age at the time.

According to him the drug lords  in Ghana actually learn the trade from grand masters in Nigeria who relocated there some years ago at the heat of the Nigerian anti-drugs crusade but eventually mastered the trade more than the people that trained them.

The source who lived in the United Kingdom for couple of years before returning back to Nigeria for reasons not known by this reporter ,painted a gory picture of the underground life in London saying that there was lot of drug businesses  going on in the cover of the darkness in major restaurants and night clubs owned by Africans in the United Kingdom.

He explained that usually those businesses  legitimate to the public as they were registered with government regulatory agencies but quickly added that the owners use this as a cover for their more lucrative  but deadly trade.

The source insisted that whether the issue was a break in,credit card fraud,deadly shoot out or knife stabbing incident,the British Police knew between Jamaicans ,Nigerians and Ghanaians who could eb responsible with strong accuracy even without investigating the matter.

This reporter was showed by yet another source of a suspected drug baron in a short movie recorded in his mobile phone as the latter sprayed American dollars and British Pounds Sterling at a party held by the drug lord at a location believed to be somewhere in Nigeria.

The source revealed that Nigerian drug peddlers because of their penchant for displaying their wealth easily  gives themselves a way to narcotic agents.

The practice of drug-peddling - the illegal selling of unlicensed medicines - has been taking place in Ghana for many years.

The government is vowing to put an end to it. But is enough action being taken?

Urgency

Although drug-peddling is illegal in Ghana, in reality this is only the case in the law books.

Drug-peddlers endear themselves to the populous though their eloquence, ubiquity, and use of lucid language - which is devoid of medical jargon.

Moreover, in Ghana, one in four people live outside a 15km radius of a doctor. This makes drug-peddlers a much more attractive option.

One who makes his living this way is Kwaku Adusei. He  was selling  home-made herbal medicines   as at 2007 and was an executive of the Drug-Peddlers' Association at the Circle Bus Station in Accra.

He believes that drug peddlers "compliment" the activity of the national health service. Although untrained in any medical profession, he speaks with the authority of a doctor.

His words:"Sexual weakness, rheumatism, abdominal pain, piles and jaundice" are caused by the accumulation of phlegm in the blood, he says.

Another peddler sells a "leopard lotion" which he claimed would address the pain of a broken leg.

And also on sale at the bus station are boxed medicines from pharmaceutical companies, although sometimes the instructions are in a foreign language.

Public denouncing

Dr Alex Dodoo, one of Ghana's leading pharmacologists, believes drug-peddling poses a "formidable threat" to the health of Ghanaians.

In his office, he shows  a liquid sold by a drug peddler which was suspected to have killed someone - and was now being investigated by the police.

He also says that drug-peddling is not being tackled with the "required urgency."

But Dr Gladys Ashitey, one of Ghana's deputy health ministers at a point , was  more positive.

"The government wants to drive drug peddlers out of business," she says.

However, she adds that "the onus lies with the public to denounce them."

And she asserts that the planned full implementation of a national health insurance scheme would help curtail the problem - as people would make greater use of state healthcare.