THE President of the Republic has unequivocally condemned it. Not once, not twice, but times without measure. He’s called chiefs to his office and reasoned with them. (So admitted a member of the Manhyia Traditional Council a few days ago.)
The President has taken advice from the Council of State. Public meetings have been held by Ministers and officials, drumming in the message, “STOP GALAMSEY, FOR IT’S KILLING OUR WATER SOURCES!”
Also, the Parliament of Ghana has passed a stringent law against it. In its severity, this law only stopped at imposing the death sentence as the punishment for breaking it.
But none of it has worked. Our women who go to our rivers and streams to “fetch water” for their households, still return home with red clay in their grawas [four-gallon tins] and buckets, instead. And it continues.
Now, our blatant self-deception has found us out.
A son of the soil has ignored all protocols and publicly pricked open the wound that’s been hiding for years below the limbs of our society – just like a hidden ulcer.
And “powerful people” are calling for his blood because (they say) “waka asԐm a yԐnka! (He has spoken the unspeakable.)
But are these “powerful people” unaware that they are pitching their collective weight against that of the state of Ghana?
They have “temporarily” stopped the radio station, on which the son of the soil made his statements, from continuing to broadcast. But do they have the legal authority to close down a radio station that has been licensed by the state, in compliance with the Constitution of Ghana?
Some unknown assailants went to the radio station and vandalised some of its equipment and motor vehicles. Do the “powerful people” want to be associated with such acts of lawlessness? Are they not aware that if lawlessness occurs in a society, it does not discriminate between those who are right and those who are wrong?
It is futile for those of us who have been warning against galamsey for years, to wring our hands again and say to the Government, “We told you so!”
For indeed, we recognise that the Government has been put in an unenviable position by the galamsey menace. If the Government cracks down hard on the galamseyers, they claim that it’s hurting “its own children”. Yet these are “children” whose ears have been closed by golden nuggets dug up from galamsey sites. Indeed, they are not “children”! They are not followers of the governing party. On the contrary, in pursuit of their selfish interests, they do not care if the governing party appears like a toothless bulldog.
Yet, since the first duty of a government is to govern, giving the government you allegedly support the image of a “toothless bulldog” means undermining it. How can anyone undermine a government and yet claim that he or she is a “supporter” of that government?
The choice was always there, unavoidably present. Either support the government to uphold the laws it has itself passed and stop galamsey altogether, or else force the Government to become the enemy of galamseyers, whoever they are.
It is an unfortunate choice. But economic realities are bereft of sentiment and do not bow down to the wishes of us humans. Given a relatively easy way of making money (obtaining a piece of land for a small down-payment; hiring one or two excavators, bulldozers and changfans and also employing competent technicians to man these machines, whether they be locals or foreigners) enables one to evade the risks involved in engaging in proper entrepreneurship. So while the dedicated and honest businessmen sweat to combat inflation, inadequate capital outlays and other imponderables (such as labour and customer problems) the galamseyer relaxes and does not scruple to boast, publicly, that he “makes one million dollars a day!” Or some such figure.
But, as the elders warned us, “ԐnkyԐnkyԐ wↄ n’afe.” [It may take ‘forever’ to happen, but happen it will! One day!]
I am afraid, the Kumasi incident could well be the first shot in the implosion of an intra-social contest for power that may take years to work itself out.
For the galamseyers are going to tell members of the Government: “Yes, you are satisfied because you can make money by awarding contracts. We do not have access to any such avenues of enrichment. Yet we fought in the election, for you!”
The Government will point to the colour of the water the people drink and say, “So you want to continue doing this to the water?” And the galamseyers will say, “it’s unfortunate, but…!”
“But what?”
The galamseyers will retort (as the saying attributed to “Wakabout” in Nigeria goes,) “Man mↄst wak!”
No more appeals to the conscience over the state of our water-sources won’t work. For, haven’t such appeals been tried before – to any avail?
An urge to adopt safer, more technically efficient methods of winning gold won’t work, either. For, in the dark, when the mosquitoes are biting and dangerous snakes are slithering about, the comfort of an excavator cabin drowns the voices of the political leadership.
Yes, days will come when those whose warnings (uttered in an uncultured manner though they might have been) will be regarded populace as prophets or heroes.
Meanwhile, traditional rulers, who should have been fighting valiantly to save their people’s water-sources (as their ancient predecessors would have done) will be looked upon as — sἑbe o tafrakyἑ — traitors.
“Oh Ghana! Na you dis?” our grandchildren will moan, as they struggle to combat the effects of self-created social disintegration in an age facing the wretchedness of climate change.
By CAMERON DUODU