‘It is because of politics, it is because of votes, nothing else’
Last year, at the 29th GJA Awards on Saturday, November 8, 2025, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II stood in the stead of all Ghanaians and spoke out, calling out politicians for the continued pillaging of our lands, resources and environment.
His words at the dinner night give an indication of how citizens must get involved in the fight for our collective future.
“Galamsey is an issue that is too dear to everybody’s heart. We have to be very careful because it is destroying this country.
It is becoming more, more… of a … like a mafia, a mafia situation that if we are not very careful, it is going to engulf all of us, and therefore we have to take this issue very, very seriously.”
Yes, galamsey has become an issue for us all, and with the ongoing discourse, particularly by politicians, some Ghanaians have this sense of being sitting ducks, and watching as these same politicians and their agents and assigns, fulfil their greed, pillage the whole country and leave us all either dead or with some deformity only conceived of in sci-fi movies.
Commitment
On the commitment of the government in fighting galamsey, many believe it is pussy footing!
And that is why the Asantehene said, “I can’t see why we cannot take up this matter seriously, unless we are all complicit.
Other than that, it is also a serious matter. I listened to the President and I feel that more must be done to stop this.”
Yes, more must be done! States of emergency must be declared in areas, to flush out the mafias, and then a team of military personnel left on guard, then the exercise replicated in the next hotspots, to get the land purged.
Last week, the JoyNews Hotline Documentary, A Tax on Galamsey, captured the President’s elected officials at Amansie Central imposing taxes on chanfan machines and excavators, with the excuse after the exposé being that those were already approved fees by the assembly for an activity predominant in the area.
The question is, so when the President and his men committed to fighting the galamsey in the Jubilee House in Accra, was no assessment made of the scale of the problem in hotspot areas to determine how the fight would be undertaken—thereby leaving some district assemblies out of the effort and still allowing them to tax proscribed chanfan machines and excavators?
That really looks like a gap in the “all-out” commitment by the government to stop galamsey!
Security
Additionally, galamsey is increasingly becoming a security crisis, hence the cry by some for a state of emergency to be declared.
Only last week the Daily Graphic reported on the “Brutal Galamsey Attack” on a forest guard in the Offin Shelterbelt Forest Reserve in the Ashanti Region that has left Sulemana Fuseini Ziama, a 26-year-old, battling for his life, a year on after the incident, when he was slashed on the knee with a machete, requiring two surgeries and other critical medical care in hospitals.
There have been countless reports of galamsey guards wielding machetes and guns, sometimes brutalising people, and sometimes holding them hostage for them to be rescued.
Others have drawn attention to foreigners in the illegality, some from insucure areas of the West African region.
Engulfing
Really, galamsey is engulfing us, as Otumfuo said. First, it is heartbreaking to see all the greenery stripped from large tracts of land.
Then there are the health implications of babies born deformed in galamsey areas, the contamination of foods, the destruction of farms and tree crops, etc., etc.
There are countless reports on the pollution of our rivers and water bodies, the destruction of electricity pylons, and the effect galamsey is having on education in certain communities, where schoolchildren would rather go dig and destroy for gold than continue schooling to be educated.
Indeed, the illegality is negatively having a bearing on all economic and social sectors!
Wisdom
On the wisdom Otumfuo gives, hear him: “And I was asking how many people would vote for a party or government while we do not want to take a firm decision on these people; I ask myself…. because it's politics, it's because of votes, nothing else!”
My understanding of his words is, “Do we continue to vote for people who continue to stab us in the back because they want to rule?”
Should Ghanaians continue voting, while galamsey persists?
Maybe we ought to all, through our MPs, get a commitment from politicians to rid Ghana of galamsey, or we all do not vote in any election at all, district or the 2028 Elections!
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