Galamsey: The madness that threatens our future

Reader, please if you can spare a minute, click on this link

I implore you to have the patience to paste the hyperlink into your browser to open it, if it doesn’t open when you click on it.

The accompanying text says that the Ankobrah River, one of the largest Rivers in Ghana, is practically dead”. The reason why I want you to watch the video that should open when you click on the link is that (as generally accepted) “One picture is worth more than a thousand words!”

The state of the Ankobrah should make every Ghanaian weep uncontrollably. For its state is also duplicated by the Pra, the Tanoh, the Densu, the Birem, the Oti the Offing (and their tributaries) which constitute the greater part of the water resources generously bequeathed to us by Nature.

Has the colour of the Ankobrah, as graphically depicted in the video, been caused by floods or other natural event? The answer is a big “NO”! On the contrary, the wretched state of the River has been DELIBERATELY caused by Man.

More precisely, Ghanaian Man -- aided and abetted by Chinese nationals (both men and women). This alliance has destroyed the Ankobrah in this horrific manner by using excavator, bulldozers and other machinery to turn the Riverbed upside down, churn up sand and pebbles from it, and “wash” the debris -- in search of gold.

They use chemicals, mainly, poisonous cyanide and mercury, to carry out their mission. Cyanide and mercury are known to kill humans and fishes. They also cause genetic diseases and deformities.

(There have been reports in the media that children have been born in the towns and villages (where water polluted with poisonous chemicals is use) who have no eyes or noses!

Nevertheless, despite galamsey being so obviously a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT DISASTER, some Ghanaians see, her, nor speak evil of it.

But every now and then, “accidents” occur to knock some sense into the most obtuse of our brains. Example: who would have been able to create a scenario whereby a Chinese woman would be able to so captivate Ghanaian officialdom that she would be able to import and sell excavators and chanfangs, against Ghanaian law; and use them in forest reserves and rivers, but, when arrested, cause the transfer of the senior police officer in charge of her case?

Or that a “senior minister” of ours would state – quite irrelevantly -- that it wasn’t her prosecution that would enable us to pay Ghana’s debts?

Or that the actions of our bureaucracy could be so opaque that the elected President of the land would not be “sure” whether the said Chinese national had been “deported” from Ghana or not (after his own Government had stopped her prosecution with an application to the court to stop the trial on the basis of a “nolle prosequi”?

And to take the cake, who would have thought it possible that this Chinese national would have the effrontery to re-enter Ghana (assuming she had in fact ever left!) and continue to live in the house where she had been domiciled before; go and have herself officially finger-printed in order to be issued with a “non-citizen identity card”?

The mind boggles, doesn’t it? And yet, when in view of all these facts, the Daily Guide reveals that over “35,000” Chinese nationals have also obtained “non-citizen identity cards,” the paper is accused of “inciting Sinophobia”!

You don’t believe it? Okay, read this:

QUOTE: Re 35,000 Chinese Grab Ghana Card Greetings to you, Cameron.

“I feel the need to react publicly.... because I find the Daily Guide’s presentation of the newsworthy facts is undoubtedly misleading, but also, in my estimation, deliberately and disgracefully so.

“The headline — and, more specifically, the news editor’s choice of the verb “grab” — is quite bad enough for me. The body of the story is far worse though, with its incendiary opening line, claiming, “Chinese nationals have taken over Non-citizen National Identity card”; (Never mind the grammatical atrocity.)

“There’s a disturbing wave of anti-Chinese hysteria percolating through a section of Ghanaian society, and it appears to me that some unscrupulous media owners are seeking to cash in on this tendency. I fear that by circulating this kind of material — especially in the form of a naked, provocative headline such as this — one risks compounding the publisher’s unprofessional, irresponsible and frankly offensive conduct, which seems calculated to incite disaffection toward a group of legally resident and law- abiding, but easily identifiable, members of our multicultural community, based purely on their looks, race, ethnicity or presumed nationality.

“This is embarrassing for a country that boasts so loudly about its supposed hospitality. Anyone who promotes this kind of “journalism” would bear a part of the blame if the particular strand of xenophobia that the DG is flaunting here were ever expressed in a form that went beyond verbal aggression.

Against the backdrop of current events that concern the alleged misdeeds of a single individual, an outbreak of indiscriminate violence against these tens of thousands of our Chinese guests is not hard to imagine. “

[CAMERON’S COMMENT: This is rich! People’s drinking water has been turned to mud by unscrupulous people and when they protest – mind you, with mere words written in a newspaper -- you accuse them of “aggression”? Oh come on, KAA! What would the Chinese do to Ghanaians who polluted the drinking water of the Chinese?]’

“What concerns me even more than the sheer ignorance, envy and nastiness fuelling the incipient mood of Sinophobia is the fact that it runs directly counter to Ghana’s strategic national interest.”