The fight against the obviously ramifying but devastating illegal small-scale mining, popularly otherwise called “galamsey” in Ghana, has indeed become a mirage. There is no doubt in my mind that our hope or wish to subdue the galamsey activities in the country has no chance of being achieved because of the involvement and direct interests in the business by some Ghanaian politicians and traditional leaders.
I was shocked to the bone to witness extensive galamsey activities ongoing in the middle of Osino, a township on the Accra-Kumasi highway in the Eastern region, during my recent visit to Ghana on holiday.
To ensure what I was witnessing from my seat in one of these high-raised Kumasi-Accra-bound VIP buses was not any hallucination but a reality, and right in Osino, I quickly typed into my phone some of the visible names conspicuously written on signposts telling where one is in Ghana.
I could see, and wrote, Fanteakwa South District, Osino District and Osino. If where I saw the shocking and near-annihilating ongoing small scale mining activities, whether illegal or legal, was not Osino, where was it, or is it, then?
Why are Ghanaian public and traditional leaders continually taking the masses for fools, toying with us as though, we are puppets with strings attached to our limbs that they can pull as and when they like and in satisfaction of their whims and caprices?
In the heat of the 2024 general elections, precisely three to four months to the election date, there came out into the streets some Ghanaian professionals, university lecturers, media men and women, students, opposition political activists, demonstrating and calling on the NPP government to stop the destructive galamsey activities largely going on in Ghana.
Much as the timing of their demonstrations and highlights could be said to be deviously politically motivated and planned on intent to cost NPP winning votes to send them into opposition, which indeed did happen, I could not blame them looking at the ravages galamsey is causing to the nation’s water bodies, fertile and arable lands, cocoa farms, and forests.
However, one would have expected the demonstrators to ensure galamsey is either stopped or curtailed under the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama and his NDC-led government, sadly, that is now not the case or else, people will not be witnessing daylight destructive galamsey activities ongoing right in the centre of Osino town and many other places in Ghana.
Galamsey activities have even increased and become accentuated under President Mahama, a likely double-standard individual who on one hand promised galamseyers his full support and assistance and on the other hand, promised the demonstrators he would stop galamsey if he won the 2024 election. What a chameleon with snake-like split tongue.
Who is the traditional leader, thus, paramount chief (“Omanhene”) of Osino? Whoever he is, is he aware of the ravaging galamsey activities ongoing in his town right under his nose and watch? Is he supportive of the galamsey activities that are consequentially destroying the water bodies and the topography of the area?
Why are Africans, especially Ghanaians, behaving so irresponsibly to be classified as a race of people devoid of grey matter in their cranium, hence are unable to manage their own affairs unless assisted or directed by their superior contemporary white people? Why this?
Are we not proverbially warned not to head towards, or into, obvious danger, when any is sighted? If yes, why are we as a people knowingly or unknowingly destroying our future by our chronic love of, and inextricable involvement in the ever-devastating galamsey activities in Ghana, principally being undertaken by the Chinese kingpins?
The powers-that-be should please come together to stop the now seeming unstoppable illegal and alluvial mining, thus galamsey, in the country. It is a ticking time bomb that is sooner going to explode to doom our nation Ghana for good, if purposeful remedial measures are not taken today but we keep procrastinating and behaving stupidly as usual sycophants, partisans and polarised tribesmen and women.
Galamsey activities are said to be rife in the Konongo area and right in some homes. If that is true as heard, they had better stop for money being sought that way will never bring them the happiness they crave.
Rockson Adofo
