‘Radix malorum est cupiditas’

John Peter Amewu is popular as a Minister of State not because at 48, he holds three Masters degrees – an MBA (Finance) from the University of Ghana, an Executive MBA in International Energy Industry Management and a Masters in Petroleum Law and Policy from University of Dundee (UK) nor because he is a Cost Engineer by profession.

As a matter of fact, he is not the only one in the present government who holds multiple degrees.

So why is John Peter Amewu in the hearts of all right-thinking persons in Ghana, especially among male populations in such galamsey-endemic areas such as Wassa Mpohor East, Agogo, Dunkwa-On-Offin, Tarkwa, Obuasi, Anyinam, Nsutam, Akwatia, Osino to mention but a few?

Get ready for a shock. In most of these areas, there are associations (unregistered) of men who have once upon a time been either jilted by girl-friends or divorced by wives – snatched by the nouveaux riches, namely ‘galamsey’ operators who were throwing money around.

While to some people this narration trivialises the ‘galamsey’ menace,my contention is that the chase after wealth for the “honour” and titles it confers on the wealthy is at the base of all our greed. Who says the ‘galamsey’ operators have no alternative livelihoods? Truth is, coins don’t attract them.

Greed

As a nation, we worship wealth not honest labour. What else can account for the stories we are hearing of the rape that went on in state institutions in the immediate past government where CEOs stole and conspired with board members to steal not thousands or hundreds of thousands but millions of precious Ghana cedis and dollars?

The answer is supplied by the Pardoner in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. He says: “Radix malorum est cupiditas” to wit, "greed is the root of all evil".  Money is not the root of all evil; it is greed.

It is greed that will cause the police to refuse to arrest people who are encroaching on lands belonging to state institutions such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – lands meant for use in scientific research. What other reason can account for a vigilante policeman being sent on transfer because he was taking the war against encroachers too seriously?

On one of the radio stations, the former Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, Joseph Yamin, who used to head the anti-galamsey committee for the region revealed that he abandoned his hopes of enforcing the elimination of galamsey due to persecution from strong people within and outside the NDC government, the armed forces and chiefs.

He accused some senior officials and prominent people of allegedly engineering his “downfall” because of his firm anti-galamsey stance.

Cactus plant

Before anybody opens his/her mouth against the methods being used by Minister Amewu in the current fight against galamsey, he/she should go ask old students of Achimota School when they discovered that the vast lands bequeathed to the school in the colonial era under Governor Guggisberg in the 1920s were being encroached in the last few years.

To protect their plots, which they claim they legally acquired from the Osu stool, the encroachers built formidable walls around them and placed armed macho land guards there.

Frightened and helpless, the Achimota School authorities could only issue petitions and report to the police. The inaction of the law and the police emboldened the encroachers.

This came to the notice of old boys of the school (popularly known as Akora), many of whom have muscle in the military, the police, National Security and BNI.

One fine morning, the encroachers visited their property only to find bulldozers “from nowhere” pulling down their walls. Whisking out their expensive mobile phones, they placed calls to certain “powerful people in high places”.

But nothing happened. No-one dared to arrest the bulldozer drivers. No encroacher has since set foot on the Achimota School lands. The headmaster now enjoys his sleep. Till today, nobody knows where the bulldozers came from or who sent them.

But the directors of the CSIR do not have any “cactus plant” to whom they can place a call. To be fair (I am told) Prof. Frimpong Boateng, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, has stirred, as he promise at his vetting that he would.

Since becoming minister, he has despatched security personnel to the land. I am further told, however, that the security have been withdrawn and the encroachers, among whom are MPs, Ministers of State, judges and other “powerful people in high places” have returned with a vengeance, confident that in Ghana, no-one would pull down a completed house no matter how illegally acquired or built.

Indiscipline

Observing the indiscipline that is destroying this beautiful country, there are times I remember the late Salifu Amankwah, that soldier who, with his monkey, was stationed at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Accra, in the Rawlings era.

Being democrats with a heart that loves the law, it is hard to admit it, but didn’t we all love the sanity and order that his methods brought to ‘Circle’ and other areas of Accra so much that long after he was gone, Circle remained the cleanest and the most orderly part of Ghana – until recently.

His methods were crude, yes; but are Ghanaians not proving that this is the language we understand?

Thinking aloud, wouldn’t you agree with me that we need a mix of the two: the law and a little of what the military people call “Bugabuga”?