The Jatikay Centre for Human Security and Peace Building has called on President John Dramani Mahama to consider changing key officers responsible for Ghana’s security and cargo-control chain following a series of large-scale narcotics consignments linked to the country.
The Centre says the increasing scale and frequency of international narcotics seizures involving Ghana raise serious concerns about the effectiveness of the country’s intelligence, border-control and port-security systems.
In a statement dated Tuesday, September 15, 2026, the Centre welcomed the President’s decision to convene security, intelligence, narcotics-control, customs, port and other relevant stakeholders to address the emerging threat.
However, it said the situation required more than arrests and seizures, stressing the need to examine how such a serious pattern of trafficking developed without earlier intervention.
The Centre particularly questioned the role of the national security coordination architecture, arguing that the National Security Coordinator should have anticipated and helped disrupt the threat before multiple major international seizures occurred.
“As an immediate confidence-building measure, we call on the President to consider changing the key officers responsible for the various stages of the security and cargo-control chain and subjecting the relevant systems to an independent vulnerability assessment,” the statement said.
It clarified that the call should not be interpreted as an allegation of wrongdoing against any individual but as a measure aimed at restoring public confidence and providing fresh leadership where serious vulnerabilities may have emerged.
The Jatikay Centre further urged authorities to widen ongoing investigations beyond couriers and identify the financiers, facilitators, compromised insiders and international criminal networks behind the narcotics consignments.
According to the Centre, the issue has moved beyond a conventional narcotics-control challenge and now poses a broader threat to national security and institutional integrity.
“This is no longer simply a narcotics-control issue. It is a national security and institutional integrity challenge,” the Centre said.
It warned that Ghana must take urgent steps to prevent the country from becoming a logistics hub for transnational organised crime.
Ghana|Atinkaonline.com|Mavis Fantevi
