The Accra Circuit Court 9, presided over by His Honour Samuel Bright Acquah, was reported to have remanded Ghana’s ‘Galamsey Queen’, Aisha Huang, into lawful custody, after having been re-arrested for allegedly engaging in illegal mining as well as sale and purchase of minerals in the Ashanti and Greater Accra regions respectively.
A report carried by The Chronicle alleged that Aisha sneaked into Ghana early this year through Togo. It said Aisha Huang, aka En Huang, used a new passport bearing the name Huang Rei Ruixia to apply for a Togo visa.
Currently, The Chronicle is reliably informed that the Attorney-General (A-G) and the Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has called for the dockets of Aisha Huang and three others from the police for prosecution.
Regardless, the public is shocked and saddened by the news that since the ‘Galamsey kingpin’ was arrested and expelled from the country in 2018 on a similar crime. This has also left the public talking and asking questions about how an individual, and in this case, a foreigner, can hold a sovereign nation like Ghana to ransom.
The Chronicle is concerned about how the dangers posed by the country’s porous borders are becoming a reality. It is not surprising that we are constantly reminded to be on high alert, since Ghana stands the risk of terrorist attack.
The Chronicle is convinced that the country’s porous borders, in the absence of seamless information sharing system among member states, are some of the reasons terrorism is escalating in the West Africa sub-region.
It is our argument that if the 15 or so countries which form the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) share common information on crime, as expected by the West African Police Information System (WAPIS) and other regionalism propositions, Aisha should have been arrested the very day she stepped foot in Togo.
But now, we are dealing with the rhetoric of a regional body that has the responsibility to promote economic trade, national cooperation and monetary union, for growth and development throughout West Africa.
ECOWAS by no means can be likened or equated to the European Union (EU) but it is yet to live up to the latter’s standards. For instance, as part of security strategies, the EU Commission and agencies provide tools for the exchange of information between national law enforcement authorities for timely access to accurate and up-to-date information and criminal intelligence to prevent, detect, and investigate criminal activities successfully.
It is worth stating that even in the Bretix deal, a room was created for security cooperation between Britain and Europe.
Comparatively, Europe, apart from their developmental advancement is in a better position to fight crime because of security cooperation and coordination between member states. Thus, if a migrant enters Europe through Italy and commits a crime in France, just by taking the fingerprints of the migrant, France can alert the receiving country of the incident.
The Chronicle is of the opinion that ECOWAS must wake up to the call and make the region safe, unattractive to criminals and extremist groups through security cooperation and coordination. The regional body does not need to reinvent the wheel.
