Building concensus to fight narcotic trade
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When the problems rear their ugly heads, we must stop looking for scapegoats and concede that certain things were not done well by those in government now, the previous regime or the entire society.
That way, we can initiate the necessary interventions to prevent a recurrence.
The tendency to pass the buck or engage in the blame game has become part of the national posture, thereby politicising every aspect of national life.
Since reports broke that the owner of Sohin Security Company, Solomon Adelaquaye, had been picked up in the United States of America (USA) for dealing in narcotics, we have been told of the political colours of the suspect and the debate thereof by the two dominant political parties.
The Daily Graphic thinks it will benefit nobody to politicise crime. But anytime there is a crime we spend time looking for the political colour of the suspects, instead of exposing the people who drag the name of Ghana into the mud.
There is no need to remind ourselves of who did what in the past in order to find solutions to the challenges of society.
Yes, we need to know what happened in the past in order to fashion ways to deal with present-day challenges, but that should be the reason for looking at what went wrong.
Our country has been in a state of flux over the last many years because of the holier-than-thou attitude of many of our leaders of today.
For some time now, Ghana has been grappling with the activities of drug barons who have reduced the country into a transit point for the drug trade in the West African sub-region.
We are unable to speak with one voice on the issue because the political leaders have made the narcotics trade a campaign mantra.
Unfortunately, some leaders of the two main political parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), have the mindset that the more they are able to accuse their opponents of involvement in the drug trade, the more the likelihood that the electorate will reject their opponents at the polls.
For this reason, our leaders are unable to treat the drug trade as a national crusade and seek the support of all in exposing the barons.
Unless we adopt a national strategy to deal with the barons involved in the trade, the crusade by the government to turn our country into a no-go area for drug barons will make little or no headway.
Our failure to deal with the drug trade will also expose our youth to the use of narcotic drugs, to the detriment of their proper character formation.
The security of the state touches the core of the stability of the state and the health and safety of its people.
It is for this reason that those who profit from the politicisation of security issues, including the drug trade, must be stopped in their track.
Recent events have also exposed the weaknesses in our security system, especially with the spate of fire outbreaks that have compelled the government to invite foreign experts and the breaches at the Kotoka International Airport that have led to the export of narcotics.
We think the security apparatus needs an overhaul to purge it of all elements that work against the interest of the country.
The Daily Graphic knows that some in the security hierarchy and government officials may disagree with our position, but we urge them to ask why, in recent times, a number of security officials have been involved in robberies and other criminal activities.
Let us bury our political differences in order to build concensus to deal with our common enemies that include the increasing threat of narcotic trade and the extraordinary fire outbreaks.