Rapper Kwaw Kese believes he was discriminated against when he was arrested and convicted for narcotics offences after being caught smoking marijuana in public in 2015.

He says he would communicate with his lawyers and seek compensation of about $1 million for the blot in his career, noting that “These things have dawned on me recently, Ghana has not been fair to me.”

Speaking on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM, he stated that there are foreign nationals who have been caught on camera smoking marijuana who were not apprehended to face the law.

However, the rapper said he was arrested and then jailed, stating, “Even with mine they don't have any proof that I was doing that. There's no shot that they could show that to say ‘we saw Kwaw Kese doing this’. It's a hearsay and I was jailed for it. They don't have any picture to prove it.”

“This is the same Ghana, the same police that arrested me are now bodyguarding with guns, guarding somebody who is not a Ghanaian to smoke in public and it is live on video and everything and that person goes scot-free,” he alleged.

The musician stated that not only was he arrested for “unnecessary reasons” but it put a huge stain on his name.

“I have proof, I have evidence that shows that other foreign nationals have come to do the same thing I was jailed for. If this is how it is, then I have to be compensated for the disgrace and what they did to me and my name,” Kwaw Kese added.

Kwaw Kese was tried for narcotic offences and was sentenced to a day’s imprisonment and a fine of GHȼ1,200 in 2015.

The rapper, popularly called ‘Abodam’, has since been advocating for decongesting the country’s prisons and improving conditions there.

In 2020, he expressed his displeasure when Jamaican musician Popcaan was seen smoking what was suspected to be marijuana publicly while touring Ghana during the height of the Year of Return.

“Only in Ghana foreigners can f**k up like this. When @kwawkese smoked in public he was arrested. So this means our Law set only to control on the citizens but foreigners are free to go. The most painful part is Ghana police. None of them was able to speak the truth out because of the small coins which will be given out … Ooh Ghana,” Kwaw Kese had said at the time.

In December 2023, Ghana's Parliament passed a law to legalise the cultivation and management of cannabis for industrial and commercial purposes but the recreational use of cannabis (marijuana) is illegal.