National Security deserves commendation for Aisha Huang arrest

Ghanaians are outraged about the resurfacing in the country of the deported notorious Chinese lady, Aisha Huang to once again engage in what has been described as unlawful activities and this public anger has been unleashed on the security apparatus.

The New Publisher is of the opinion that in this instance, National Security should rather be congratulated than condemned.

The public anger should be directed at the leading politicians who facilitated her deportation and even defended it at the time.

In the first place, it was National Security that arrested Aisha Huang before news went public that she had reentered the country and was engaged in suspected illegal mining.

It is this new arrest by National Security that has prompted the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Dame to call for her docket and initiate prosecution for both her new and old sins.

Without the arrest by National Security, the Attorney General could not have reinitiated prosecution procedures. She would have been moving around the country without notice and misbehaving.

‘The exact crime or offence for which National Security is at the receiving end of public anger after the arrest of Aisha Huang cannot be explained.

We should not pretend that our boarders are in the best of shapes. The deported lady is reported to have reentered the country using one of the several illegal routes.

The boarders are overly porous and this is no secret.

It is one major challenge that as a country, we have not paid the requisite attention to.

Aisha Huang or any terrorist could have easily used the same route to enter the country without our Immigration Services knowing.

We should not pretend that Aisha Huang is the ONLY persons who has entered

Ghana through unapproved entry points in recent times. We should also not pretend she would be the last person to do so.

What we should be excited about is the fact that she has been grabbed and would be prosecuted. The institution, National Security, which grabbed her should be applauded and encouraged to do more.

What National Security has done is yet another testimony that the security apparatus has what it takes to live up to task if they are made to work devoid of political interference and what has become known as ‘order from above’.

We should not miss the focus. The illegal entry of Aisha is not the main issue. The issue is that when the country had the chance to prosecute her and if found guilty jailed, she would not have had the second chance to get involved in yet another suspected illegality.

Her return to Ghana, the mode of her return and the circumstances under which she was arrested should be a cause of worry for former Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo who made her public statement that jailing her was not important and that it was not what would solve Ghana’s problems.

She had been arraigned before court on May 9, 2017, for engaging in illegal small-scale mining in the Amansie Central District in the Ashanti Region.

But someway somehow, Government filled a Nolle Prosequi, she was deported in the middle of the trial only for her to resurface in 2022 under dubious circumstances.

We applaud National Security and encourage them to do more of such arrests in hope that the suspects would be prosecuted without political interference.