Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you surely must have heard about the case involving ‘The Girl With The Cocaine Stash’. That’s the moniker I’ve given to this whole saga, modelled on the title of the uber successful novel and movie, ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.’
Nayele Ametefeh, aka Ruby Adu Gyamfi, aka Ruby Appiah, aka Angel, was arrested by security operatives at London’s Heathrow Airport carrying twelve kilos of cocaine spread between her luggage and handbag. Initial reports claimed she carried a Ghanaian diplomatic passport, and within hours the government had been sent into crisis mode.
The Minister of Communications, Edward Omane Boahmah, was at the forefront of this exercise. He loudly proclaimed that the lady arrested held no diplomatic passport, and pointed to an error of some online publications using the wrong picture to accompany the story, as well as insinuations that she was close to the first family; to indicate that due diligence was not done. The Bureau of National Investigations then ‘invited’ the CEO of Citi FM and the editor of the Daily Graphic in for questioning.
After several questions were raised over their role in such an event, the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), decided to flex their muscles and show they were on top of issues; they ended up embarrassing themselves more than they ever would have done by just staying silent.
They issued a statement signed by their Deputy Executive Secretary, Richard Nii Lante Blankson. Once again it was categorically denied that Ruby held a diplomatic passport, that she just held an Austrian passport and an ordinary Ghanaian passport. The clincher from NACOB, that she was arrested at Heathrow through a collaborative effort between NACOB and its British partners.