The writer
“And gold became god and man became merchandise.” A blessed land bleeding from the hands of her own children and serving foreigners platter.
In the heart of Ghana’s rich lands lies a broken mirror. A land once full of promise, now shattered by greed, silence and short-sightedness. We call it ‘Galamsey’, an innocent word that now carries the weight of a nation’s heartbreak.
What dates back to ancient days as survival mining has spiraled into a national wound. Rivers that once quenched our thirst now run like poisoned veins. Forests, cocoa, coffee, rubber and crop farms that once stood proud are bald and bleeding. The earth cries but who is listening?
This is not just about the environment. It is about us, our conscience, our dignity and our future. It is about our children who will one day ask: “What did you do when our land was dying?”
Too many of us have chosen silence; the comfortable silence that watches evil and calls it none of our business. Yet galamsey is everyone’s business. Whether you are a chief, a teacher, a pastor, a student, a journalist or a politician .The land that feeds us is bleeding before our very eyes.
We didn’t get here overnight. This deadly kind of galamsey didn’t begin with shovels and mercury. It began with permission; we call it order from above. With compromise, looking the other way, justifying wrong because of poverty and people who had the power to act but chose their pockets over their people.
It’s easy to point fingers at the galamsey boys, the young men risking their lives in the pits. But let’s ask ourselves: who sponsors them? Who is behind them? Who protects them? Who finances them? Are they the only real cause of our tragedy? Who turned our state institutions into sleepy watchmen?
We are all in this. Some dig with excavators, others dig with policies. Some mine with their hands, others with their signatures. Some destroy with action, others destroy with silence. And then some of us simply cry on social media and move on.
Where are the traditional leaders whose stools were once rooted in ancestral lands? Where are the district and municipal leaders whose jurisdictions now resemble war zones? Where are the youth leaders, the student unions, the faith-based organisations?
We are watching the soul of Ghana get carved out one illegal pit at a time. And who are the real beneficiaries of our blood? What do we have to show for? Our gatekeepers, the very ones who should be speaking, rising, resisting have become too comfortable, too afraid or too compromised.
It is said that when the drums change, the dance must also change. But in Ghana, the music of greed plays louder than the drumbeat of responsibility.
We need national awakening not just policies, not just committees, not just slogans. We need a movement of conscience.
We need schools teaching children to love the land. We need churches and mosques preaching about environmental stewardship. We need the media to stay awake, to keep the pressure on. We need citizens who will refuse to be used by foreigners mining activities that cost us our rivers. We need leaders who will choose legacy over loot.
This is not just about water bodies and cocoa farms. It is about the soul of a nation.
It is about whether we can look our children in the eye and say: “We fought for your tomorrow.”
We may be broken but we are not beyond repair. The same hands that destroy can also rebuild. The same voices that are silent can roar. The same Ghana that stands mocked can rise again.
We must reach the point where we say: “Enough! not on our soil, not in our name.” The land has given us gold but what have we given it in return? Destruction, poison and silence?
Let this be our turning point, the moment when we stop waiting for someone else and we become the ones Ghana has been waiting for. Because if we don’t rise to protect the land, we will fall with it.
By Alice Frimpong Sarkodie