At a funeral reception recently, a colleague asked why I sometimes refer to articles I wrote some years back! My simple answer was, “Abed (Abednego), it is because, as we say in the military, “situation, no change,” when things remain unchanged.
So, while one would want to write about positive and more interesting topics on national development, galamsey, corruption, insults/unbridled arrogance, filth, bad roads, schools under trees, etc., still dominate the news!
Hwediem
Almost immediately after this conversation came news of the attempted lynching of ten soldiers led by the Colonel Director of the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) at Hwediem on November 1, 2025, when they tried arresting galamseyers.
I asked myself, after Denkyira-Obuasi ignobly etched itself into history by the gruesome murder of Maj. Mahama in 2017, was Hwediem attempting worse, lynching ten soldiers, such that the Director of NAIMOS should make the chilling statement that it is only “the mercy of God” that saved them from death?
Video clips of Ghanaian soldiers in that dire situation were shameful. Preliminary Police investigations, corroborated by anti-galamsey journalist Erastus Asare-Donkor, show that the attack was, sadly, masterminded by the MP for Asutifi-North, with the support of a very senior MP also from Asutifi.
This took me to my article of September 2024 titled, “Self-destruct button pressed?” quoted below.
To say September 2024 hit the ground running might be an understatement. Indeed, the first week was eventful.
• Galamsey took centre-stage, with news/harrowing pictures from all over Ghana. The latest galamsey entrants are women in Talensi, Upper-East Region.
• In Parliament, an MP told his opponents, “You polluted the water more than us.”
This reminded me of the Nigerian author Nkem Nwankwo, whose 1975 novel was titled “My Mercedes-Benz is bigger than yours.”
Here, your destruction of our water-bodies is “bigger” than ours, so we have done no wrong!
• A Joy FM report on September 5, 2025, said a galamseyer, incredibly, approached a chief to sell him part of River Ankobra.
In my December 2021 article titled Digging our own graves, I stated as follows:
Digging our own graves
In his opening address at the UN Climate Conference COP-26 in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 1, 2021, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had very strong words for the 197 nations, particularly the developed/industrialised world.
The UN Secretary-General stated that “The six years since the Paris Climate Agreement (COP-25) have been the hottest on record.
Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink.
We face a stark choice ‒ either we stop it, or it stops us. Enough of brutalising biodiversity, killing ourselves with carbon, treating nature like a toilet, burning, drilling and mining our earth deeper. We are digging our own graves!”
In Ghana, galamsey has degraded our forests/lands, polluted rivers, and poisoned underground water with chemicals like cyanide.
Children have dropped out of school to do illegal mining, with drug use and prostitution resulting.
In recent times, environmentalists have sounded alarm bells about destroying Nature’s biologically diverse ecosystem of the Atiwa Forest, a veritable source of drinking water for Ghana, just to allow foreigners to mine manganese.
Are we deliberately pressing the self-destruct button for our current gain at the expense of future generations who have to import drinking water?
Are we proving UNSG Antonio Guterres right that “we are digging our own graves?”
Antonio Guterres’ words, “we are digging our own graves”, may have been directed at the world’s leading polluters, the developed world.
In Ghana, however, galamsey and its attendant cross-cutting evils like depleting our forests, poisoning of both surface and underground water, and children dropping out of school into armed robbery and prostitution, amount to “digging our own graves.”
If we allow it as DRC has, foreigners will help us “dig our own graves.”
Therefore, let us fix Ghana and live at home as respected citizens, not as disrespected second-rate immigrants/citizens elsewhere.
On Tuesday, September 3, 2024, an MP on TV fired at his opponents, saying, “You have polluted the water more than us!”
Telling the MPs they knew those involved in galamsey, the Speaker stated, “Desist from galamsey!” But, is that all?
After Otumfuor’s destoolment of three chiefs, is the Police taking any action?
Commenting on the damage to our environment, Founding Director of the Environmental and Sanitation Studies of the University of Ghana, Professor Chris Gordon, said the damage done to the environment cannot be restored in his lifetime. He added that we have mortgaged the future of our children.
On his part, Professor Kwasi Aning of the KAIPTC stated that galamsey has assumed trans-national proportions with Chinese, Nigeriens, Burkinabes, Nigerians, Malians and their overseas backers all actively destroying Ghana’s environment.
Additionally, how does the heavy equipment move from the port to the mining areas?
I concluded my recent article titled “Legacy! Legacy! Legacy! saying,
The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears, I cannot hear what you say about yourself!”
Holy Child School, Cape Coast, has for its motto “Facta, non verba,” which means “Action, not words!” Unfortunately, Ghanaians have coined “No Action, Talk Only (NATO) as our current situation.
On August 31, 2024, Ghana Water Company Limited attributed the current water crisis in the Central Region, particularly Cape Coast, Elmina and their environs to galamsey, resulting from inadequate water at the Sekyere-Hemang Water-Treatment-Plant! “Treated mud” only produces water loaded with heavy metals.
In the words of anti-galamsey crusader journalist Erastus Asare Donkor, galamsey is the result of failed leadership. “Galamsey” is a national disgrace! Galamsey is a dishonourable legacy!
Have we become an “Esau-Republic” selling our birthright/existence to foreigners for diseases/extinction?
How low we have sunk!
Discussion
The Speaker once said they know MPs involved in galamsey and warned them to stop. Is that enough in light of the Police naming two after “Hwediem-ites” attempted lynching ten soldiers?
Has the self-destruct button been pressed?
Remember UN Secretary-General Guterres’ warning on environmental degradation, saying, “We are digging our own graves! Either we stop it, or it stops us!”
Leadership, lead by example! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up!
The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association
Nairobi, Kenya; Council Chairman, Family Health University,
Teshie, Accra
E-mail: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com
