DEATh iS the single most fearful thing in life. When a conscious, mentally fit person contemplates death, he becomes terrified. he asks himself, “So you mean my flesh will rot away, to be eaten by maggots? Will my eyes become holes in a bony skull?”
That’s why life has equipped us to protect ourselves from death.
Sometimes, when we are about to do something stupid –such as dart into a road on which vehicular traffic is heavy – ‘something’ makes us stop in our tracks.
Just in the nick of time.
As we breathe a sigh of relief, we tell ourselves, “Hmmm! That was close!
I am really grateful that ‘something’ made me stop, just as I was stepping into danger!”
Although we are thus primed by instinct not to invite death too easily, we sometimes act so foolishly that we deserve to die from the results of our own actions.
Sad to say, right now, our whole nation, GHANA is acting in a way that will ensure that the nation may not survive for another fifty years, at best, maybe one hundred years. To understand what I am talking about, please (if you are able to do so) kindly tune into www.youtube.com and search for a video entitled:
“GHANA’S DEAD RIVERS.”
It describes a journey carried out by one of our brave TV journalists, during which he ascertains what is being done to our rivers. We see ‘filifili’, the dangerous effects of polluted water on those who are forced to use such water.
The people the journalist interviews are not scientists or ‘book-long’ people. Just like a man who wants to bathe in water or wash his clothing in it.
Just as he had been doing all this life. Only, he can’t do so now.
And the reason is on the screen for us to see.
We see miles and miles of chocolatecoloured water. Not just that – we are told that the water has become coloured because people have been polluting it by using excavators on it, to dig up the riverbed, looking for gold.
Digging for gold in other people’s drinking water? Yes, yes and again yes. And no-one can do anything about it, because those who own the excavators are rich and powerful people, who can help others to win elections.
Once their friends and accomplices get into power, they are safe, for no-one can arrest them and successfully prosecute them for endangering other people’s lives by digging for gold in other people’s drinking water.
And it isn’t as if there was nothing to read to warn everyone against polluting drinking water with chemicals. Here is one authoritative passage (for instance): QUOTE:
Access to (GOOD) quality (DRINKING) water remains critical for protecting communities against water-borne diseases worldwide.
Potable and quality water penetration to most rural communities is minimal. (IT IS ESTIMATED THAT) over 2.2 billion people worldwide are negatively affected.
Activities such as illegal mining (GALAMSEY), discharge of untreated household and industrial waste into water bodies, and agricultural pollution, among others, result in pollution of water bodies, thus, impacting water quality.
This study sought to ascertain and measure the actual environmental impact of illegal mining activities (GALAMSEY) in the Bonsa River in the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly, Ghana.
“The river was partitioned into upstream, midstream, and downstream locations, and water samples were collected and subjected to physicochemical and heavy metal pollution analysis. The physicochemical characteristics in the Bonsa River revealed mean turbidity values of 155.75 NTU downstream, 135.0 NTU midstream, and 207.0 NTU upstream.
(These figures) exceed the required international benchmark of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for potable water.
The heavy metal analysis of LEAD and MERCURY also showed values considerably higher than those permissible by the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the WHO, indicating significant contamination levels.
“The study concludes that based on the physicochemical and heavy metal analysis, the Bonsa River is not safe for consumption at all locations,”
END QUOTE
Oyiwa! It is over to us citizens, to prevent ourselves from being killed by the unpatriotic actions of a few selfish, gold-diggers, or galamseyers, who choose to ignore scientific findings and basically POISON the water of their fellow citizens.