The Archbishop of the Church of the Province of West Africa has criticized politicians in Ghana for using the arrest of a smuggler caught with 12kg of cocaine at Heathrow Airport as a political tool to advance their partisan interests. Last week Ruby Appiah, a Ghanaian national, was detained by customs officials after the drugs were found in her luggage. The arrest of the “cocaine angel”, as she was dubbed by the Ghanaian press, prompted local MPs to link the flamboyant Mrs. Appiah with their political rivals. At a service of Thanksgiving held in conjunction with the opposition NPP party’s annual congress, the Most Rev. Daniel Yinkah Sarfo urged restraint. “Fellow Ghanaians let us all come together and fight the drug menace and stop doing politics with it because Ghana’s name is at stake. Ghanaians cannot be taken for granted all the time by politicians.” Local newspaper accounts of the archbishop’s speech cited him as also saying Ghana was not the property of its political classes. “ I always say that Ghana is not for politicians alone. It belongs to all of us. Traditional leaders, workers, farmers, women and children and so on are all stakeholders of anything that concerns this our nation.”
