Speaker rejects Minority's drug-inquiry motion as Parliament sits in emergency session

Pinned summary · as of 05:04

Parliament interrupted its recess to sit on Tuesday, 29 September, after the Minority Caucus asked for an emergency session on large narcotics seizures tied to Ghana. The Speaker then turned down the Minority's motion for an Ad Hoc Committee, saying it overlapped with matters already in court, and Majority Leader James Agalga called the request premature and said the government has already acted. The Minority says the seizures expose gaps in the country's port and security systems, and also accuses state agencies of being used against its MPs and a nurse over the same issue.

What we know

• Minority MPs lodged a formal request on 18 September for Parliament to be recalled, citing the constitutional provision on extraordinary sittings (Article 112(3)) together with Order 53, and the Speaker acknowledged receipt. Speaker Alban Bagbin then brought MPs back for an extraordinary sitting on Tuesday, 29 September, so that the recent cocaine seizures could be debated.
• At that sitting the Speaker turned down the Minority's motion for an Ad Hoc Committee on the seizures. He said it overlapped substantially with matters already before the courts and could prejudice those proceedings.
• Habib Iddrisu, the Tolon MP who is First Deputy Minority Whip, filed the motion. It asked for a committee under Article 103 to examine how the consignments were processed, inspected, cleared and exported, the adequacy of security at ports and airports, the roles of agencies and companies, the progress of investigations, and whether financiers and organisers are being pursued.
• Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin said after the ruling that the caucus was disappointed but would not give up. He said it would use another route under the Constitution and the Standing Orders, without saying which, and he questioned how the Standing Orders had been applied.
• The Minority says the proposed inquiry would look at how institutions performed and were held to account, not at the guilt of individuals whose cases are in court.
• The seizure at the centre of the row is nearly 3.9 tonnes of cocaine that French authorities found at Dunkirk on 10 September 2026 in a container that had left Ghana, declared as plastic waste.
• The Minority also lists earlier cases: Pedu Junction in March 2025 (over 3.3 tonnes), a Tema Harbour warehouse in August 2026 (866 parcels), and June 2026 in Australia, where 320 kilogrammes of methamphetamine were seized from a consignment traced back to Ghana.
• The petition also raised a cocaine haul of about 120 slabs along the Takoradi-Cape Coast highway, an aircraft said to have brought drugs and undeclared US currency from Gran Canaria in March 2025, and the MV Sankofa, which it says was released after paying only part of a fine of nearly GH₵12 million and was later arrested in Senegal. These are the Minority's assertions.
• The Minority Caucus alleged that the government is deploying security agencies against MPs and citizens who want an inquiry. It cited the arrest of nurse Salomey Awiti Bafoh and a confrontation at the High Court involving Nana Adjei Baffour Awuah, who represents Manhyia South. The reports do not include a government reply to these specific accusations.
• Ms Bafoh was remanded for two weeks and faces a misdemeanour accusation of helping to publish false news. The Minority says National Signals Bureau officers arrested her at her Hansua residence in Techiman around 11:00 PM on 12 September, held her without access to lawyers or family until 15 September, and brought her before a court only on 16 September, which it says breached the 48-hour rule.
• According to the Minority, a woman who said she was from EOCO confronted Mr Awuah inside the High Court precincts after Ms Bafoh's bail hearing, produced no proper identification and used force when lawyers and bystanders intervened. The Minority argues that EOCO's timing, days before the deadline for recalling Parliament, points to a political motive; EOCO's own release, as the Minority describes it, did not name the offence, any warrant or the court.
• The Minority demanded immediate bail for Ms Bafoh, an explanation from the Interior and National Security ministers of the legal basis for her arrest, a CHRAJ investigation into her treatment, and disclosure by EOCO of the offence it is probing, whether it holds a warrant and who the officer was.
• The Minority is asking the government to release complete and verifiable numbers on narcotics busts, arrests and court cases from January 2025 onwards.
• Mr Agalga rejected the case for a recall and a parliamentary probe. He said the Mahama administration's measures were already delivering, pointing to a specialised court for narcotics trials and to improved arrests and prosecutions, and predicted more arrests. He also said Parliament's job is oversight rather than criminal investigation, doubted the Minority's real intent, noted that some suspects have already been arraigned and warned that a parallel inquiry could yield conflicting findings.
• By the majority leader's figures, NACOC made 73 arrests nationwide in 2024 and 217 arrests across 165 cases in 2025, a rise of 197 per cent.
• The Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference has urged a coordinated national response and a proper investigation into the networks behind the seizures, describing drug trafficking as both a security challenge and a moral crisis.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, the Minority's lead voice on the Defence and Interior Committee, argued that the seizures reflect weak profiling, scanning and enforcement and possible collusion by state agencies, and the Minority also accused the government of failing to stop the shipments. These are allegations. The reports include no official reply to the collusion claim.
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  Reports value the Dunkirk haul differently: Today, Ghana News Online and The Custodian say about €225 million, Onua Online gives €225 million or roughly US$261 million, while Citi Newsroom, citing the Minority's motion, says $261 million. Whether these are one valuation in two currencies is not confirmed by any official source.
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  The Australian methamphetamine seizure is valued at US$261 million in the Minority's memorandum as reported by The Custodian, but The Custodian's later report and Ghana MPs give a value of $296 million (A$296 million in one account). The accounts do not agree.
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  The memorandum puts the combined worth of big drug hauls tied to Ghana during the present government at far above US$1 billion within two years. Only The Custodian carries the figure and no source verifies it.
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  Ghana News Online's editorial by The Spyder says the Interior Minister admitted suspected official collusion, and The Vaultz News quotes Mr Afenyo-Markin as saying the minister told Parliament that compromised officials had undermined intelligence. No transcript or direct quotation from the minister is reported.
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  The Spyder editorial in Ghana News Online also alleged that customs officers passed a Dunkirk-bound container despite scanner flags, and said President Mahama gave security chiefs two weeks to make recommendations. These are one editorial's claims and no other report corroborates them.
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  The Publisher Online reported that the Minority wants to know who gave party activists, a few reportedly posing as National Security operatives, the go-ahead to move into port and harbour bodies from January 2025, and how much access to cargo and scanning they obtained. No other report carries the claim and no answer is reported.
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  Onua Online reported that Dr Nana Ayew Afriye, an NPP MP, called for a bipartisan inquiry and said a Dutch national and two Ghanaians had been detained in connection with the Tema Harbour cocaine. No other report carries these points.
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  The Vaultz News reported that NPP National Organiser Henry Nana Boakye raised questions about the detention of Musah Atta, a person the party connected with presidential security arrangements, and that the Christian Council of Ghana said it would take the drug problem up. It also reported that the Majority points to a NACOC forensic laboratory under construction. Each point has a single source.
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  The Ghana Report quoted former Tamale Central MP Inusah Fuseini as saying the inquiry must identify the individuals who let the shipments pass, rather than only remove institutional heads. No other report carries the remark.
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  At a press conference on 24 September, Mr Agalga said NACOC had long been under-resourced, that a 2018 decision ended its mandatory joint inspection at Tema Port, and that the government had approved 2,200 more NACOC staff. He also listed 2025 seizures of 1,497.75 kilogrammes of narcotics and cash confiscations worth GH₵6.93 million plus $440,382. Ghana MPs separately quoted him as saying NACOC has been restored among the agencies doing mandatory port inspections. Each account appears in a single report.

Why it matters for Ghana

Tema, Takoradi and other ports handle much of the trade that Ghanaian importers and exporters depend on, so a reputation as a transit point for drugs can bring closer checks on legitimate cargo. The argument over who is accountable for port screening will shape how much money and staff NACOC receives. It also affects whether communities see quicker trials, since the government says the new narcotics court will clear the case backlog. The dispute over Ms Bafoh's arrest and the court-precinct incident puts a further question before the public: how state agencies deal with critics and their lawyers, which the Minority wants CHRAJ and the Judicial Service to address.