7 OCTOBER 2026
By Boakye Stephen, Kumasi, Ghana | Reporting for Ghanaian News Canada
Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has challenged journalists to intensify investigations into cocaine shipments linked to Ghana, arguing that the country needs answers about how large consignments continue to move through its systems.
He made the call at the launch of the 30th Ghana Journalists Association Media Awards, where he questioned the government’s handling of recent narcotics cases and the failure of Parliament to pursue a proposed inquiry.
Afenyo-Markin alleged that attention was being shifted from the international cocaine seizures through high-profile arrests and political controversies.
“Whenever the Minority focuses on consensus, citizens demand accountability on these massive security failures; this government deploys a deliberate red herring to swerve public discourse, rather than tackling possible villains and clearing our national reputation. State security agencies are then deployed against political opponents.”
He said the central issue should be determining who is responsible for major narcotics consignments linked to Ghana and whether weaknesses within the country’s security system are being exploited.
The Minority Leader also accused authorities of creating what he described as media spectacles that distract from investigations into cocaine seized outside Ghana.
“These orchestrated spectacles are not genuine law enforcement actions. They are calculated red herrings, engineered to saturate news cycles, generate partisan noise, and pull the Ghanaian press away from investigating tons of cocaine seized abroad and a damaging fifth-place ranking at the port of Antwerp.”
Afenyo-Markin therefore urged the media to independently trace the movement of narcotics through Ghana’s ports and borders, particularly in areas where parliamentary scrutiny has been limited.
“Do not settle for the sanitised government press statement or succumb to political diversion. Refuse the red herring. Maintain absolute focus on the facts, follow the trail of these narcotic shipments, expose institutional complicity and demand accountability for the sovereign people of Ghana.”
He maintained that the Minority’s inability to secure the proposed parliamentary inquiry places an even greater responsibility on investigative journalists to examine the evidence surrounding the cocaine shipments.
MAIN QUOTE
“Do not settle for the sanitised government press statement or succumb to political diversion.”
COMMENTARY
Afenyo-Markin’s remarks place the focus on a wider question: how narcotics linked to Ghana are moving through international supply chains and whether existing controls are strong enough. His allegations about political diversion remain claims and would require evidence from investigations and official records. Independent journalism can nevertheless help establish the facts, identify accountability gaps and separate genuine law-enforcement activity from political controversy.
