Even the devil rested | The Ghana Report

In 2023, Joy FM’s Erastus Asare Donkor released the documentary POISONED FOR GOLD. It was yet another compelling demonstration of the evil destruction of the country’s forest reserves and water bodies for gold. He said that ten major rivers including Ankobra, Tano and Offin have been taken over by lead, arsenic, chromium and cadmium.

A meticulous investigation that exposed his personal safety, the journalist presented his evidence to the public. In interviews on radio and television, he did not say that illegal miners with headpan and shovel were the characters behind the destruction of our forest. He said that those behind the destruction are heavyweights with oversight of protection from the corridors of political power. Before his work, Accra-based Citi FM had been running a campaign against illegal mining of Galamsey. The management of the station devoted every line of its existence to it, unfortunately, the state has failed to take action.

Like a warlord who goes to peace talks and pretends to negotiate peace, while at the same time recruiting children of war, the government has adopted the cow dung approach. A year ago, Al Jazeera published a report on how food vendors in mining communities use polluted water to cook for their customers. The same video shows residents drinking from the same polluted water. These innocent people will forever bear a burden imposed on them by those who were elected to protect them. The impact of Galamsey on the inadequate water supply in large parts of the country is already being felt.

So when I heard security expert Professor Kwesi Aning talking about the Galamsey issue on JoyFm Super Morning Show on Monday 2nd September 2024, I had a flashback to that Erastus documentary. Prof. Aning and two others including the Chief Executive of Ghana Water Company were talking about a statement the water company had issued on the impact of illegal mining on its operations.

I came across the statement on social media. The company explained the water shortage in Elmina, Cape Coast and surrounding communities. It said that the “recent gap between demand and supply is due to insufficient raw water received at the Sekyere Hemang Water Treatment Plant (WTP) as a result of Galamsey.”

The statement also discussed the pollution of the famous Pra River and how this has reduced water supplies.

“About 60 percent of the holding capacity has silted up due to illegal mining (Galamsey), endangering the quality of the raw water. The statement, signed by the management, ended with the message: WE WISH YOU A HAPPY FESTIVAL… Afehyia Paa oooo!!!!!

For those who may not know, this weekend is the annual Fetu Afahye by the people of Cape Coast of Oguaa. It is a festival that attracts hundreds of domestic and foreign visitors. Several areas in Accra have also been hit by water shortages. Prof. Aning said that Galamsey has now become a TRANSNATIONAL CRIME. He said that the procedures of the illegal mining operation classified as part of the illicit financial flows. He then asked how a country that is not at war can pollute its own water bodies for gold.

“In wartime, you destroy water bodies to prevent the enemy from having access to water. But we do it to ourselves without such a threat.”

The forest reserves are being rapidly decimated while political leaders continue to approve MILLIONS OF CEDIS for tree planting to supposedly to secure the future of the environment. Then there is the case of mass participation in United Nations-organized climate summits, where recycled speeches are given to please the cameras. Who are we kidding with this drama?

When President Nana Akufo Addo said he was prepared to risk his presidency as part of the fight against Galamsey, he was rightly praised. After all, the Commander-in-Chief has shown that he is prepared to strike. I share a WhatsApp group with some environmental activists and some had zero expectations of the president’s promise.

One of the posts that caught my attention was from a then PhD student in environmental law in the United States. I marked the post with an asterisk just to be sure. He said: “Nana Addo only tickles the balls of the chiefs to excite them… he won’t do foko.” He then asked anyone who was willing to invest money to come forward. No one did.

But after that statement and the extent of the ongoing destruction of our forest reserves, he was exonerated. The expectation was that once the President put his job on the line, he would go after the REAL DEBT and make an example of them – not AREA BOYS with HEADPANS AND SHOVELS, who are arrested and thrown in cells at night.

By promising to risk his presidency, the Commander-in-Chief admitted that he will resign if the battle against Galamsey is not won.

“If my party, by the grace of God, allows me to go again and I have the health and everything to go again, but I don’t get it anymore, then I will say to myself: ‘Well, this is a choice I have to make as a human being.’ Do you do what is right or what you think will help you move forward? I think you do what is right and what is expected of you.”

Can the president read this quote and say he is fighting the threat, or that he is coping with it? The evidence is on the ground. Another soundbite for the headlines, perhaps. The Forestry Commission says more than 30 forest reserves have been destroyed by illegal mining. And the numbers could rise if the carnage is not stopped.

This same illegal mining has led to the unfortunate murder of a young soldier, leaving behind a young wife and children. The brutal murder provoked the military to invade the community in a revenge attack. Unfortunately, there are reports of military officers providing cover to Galamsey Kingpins and their allies.

I have heard the President speak highly of the success of the fight against Galamsey. Sometimes I wonder what kind of briefing he is getting from those he has appointed to protect him. Disruptive leaders, we are told, are those who choose the hard way even when their friends and eulogists do not like it. Because they know that their dedication to the national cause will benefit generations to come. And they will be duly immortalized beyond the NOW. After all, the eulogists will die like everyone else and history will not remember them for anything other than what they are known for. It is their generation that bears the scars of their deeds, unfortunately.

In his eulogy to the memory of Singapore’s father Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Hsien Loong wrote: “What do I have at the end of the day? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.”

As Ghanaians, we do not ask much of our leaders. We only want them to do right by us. And that is what we expect from this president and the government. This is the Ghana that was bequeathed to us by the minds behind the establishment of the Aborigine Rights Protection Society, who dedicated their lives to saving our country from the colonial masters. This is the Ghana that was bequeathed to us by those behind the establishment of the UGCC, CPP and many other tribal parties, who devoted their time and energy to saving the environment. Not that they did not have GREEDY elements with an insatiable hunger for illegal wealth acquisition, but they tamed the hunger of such characters by addressing the malpractices in the system, however limited their strength may be.

As I always say or tell friends, people elect leaders with the right intentions and hope that they will do good by them, despite all their human weaknesses.

Let me digress for a moment and draw a comparison between the level of involvement of the President in the Galamsey struggle and the construction of the now-stalled National Cathedral. The President has been fully committed to the project and those suspected of opposing it have been named Sanballat and Tobias. Millions of public funds have been spent on the well that is expected to house the Cathedral. No one knows when the structure will be built. I am not sure that a country whose financial strings are in the hands of the International Monetary Fund can afford to pour more money into the project. Has it become a millstone around the neck of Ama Ghana?

Today, fishermen living around mining towns are unemployed. The rivers flow straight into the sea, killing the fish or carrying them away, as the polluted bodies are thrown into the sea and contribute to the destruction. What is more precious in the sight of God than to protect that which he has created for man to take comfort in?

When I read a quote from UTV attributed to a government communicator, namely “Elect Dr Bawumia to fight galamsey in the future”, I thought I had not read it properly. I then listened to the audio. Ironically, the said communicator comes from a town that is plagued by illegal mining. He ran for parliament but was unsuccessful.

Why should the destruction of our forest reserves be postponed at the convenience of parochial electoral fortunes, while communities suffer in terror? Is that all there is to power?

I think this is also the time for the religious bodies to stand up and demand answers from the leaders. Especially from the Christian community who have been vocal in their pleas for the now stalled cathedral, this is the time to STAND UP AND BE COUNTED. The church should not always be about PRAYER, TONGUES, FASTING AND DIRECTION. Some of the leaders who supported the cathedral have branches in the affected mining towns.

Their flocks are consuming poison by the minute. They cannot talk about winning souls or spreading the gospel without worrying about the future of the environments that protect their investments. If those communities fail, the churches will fail. And with them, more souls may be lost. There is a reason we are Ghanaians and not Europeans or Americans. In 1929, when the great Ghanaian composer and musicologist Ephraim Amu composed “Yɛn Ara Asaase Ni,” or “This is our Land,” he may have been inspired by the lush green of the country’s forest belt, with birds flapping their wings and chirping happily in contentment.

This is not the country he and his colleagues envisioned as the Ghana of today. Greed must have a limit, Mr. President.

Even the DEVIL rested at one point.