Self-destruct button pressed?

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 at 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, 2024, said a galamseyer incredibly approached a chief to sell him part of River Ankobra.

●O’Reilly SHS/AAMUSTED – There was a fatal stabbing to death of an 18-year-old student of the O’Reilly SHS by a classmate when an argument over whose father was richer went ballistic!

In Kumasi, a final-year student of the Akenten-Appiah –Akenten-Appiah-Menka-University-of-Skills-Training-and-Entrepreneurial-Development (AAMUSTED) was stabbed to death. In my December 2021 article titled Digging our own graves, I stated as follows.

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.

COP, informally the “Earth Summit,” stands for “Conference of the Parties,” where “Parties” refer to the nations that agreed to a new environment pact, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at a meeting in 1992. COP-1 was in Berlin in 1995.

When the fundamentals of education are weak: We need resetting not upgrading
The UN Secretary-General stated that “The six years since the Paris Climate Agreement (COP-25) has 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 usage 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 home as respected citizens, not as disrespected second-rate immigrants/citizens elsewhere.

Discussion

On Tuesday, September 3, 2024, television showed the stabbed 18-year-old student of the O’Reilly SHS being carried to the LEKMA Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Why would an unnecessary and intellectually bankrupt argument over whose father is richer, instead of concentrating on the SSCE examinations they were writing, degenerate into a stabbing incident leading to death?

Sadly, it points to our loss of values/societal decadence, where money is all that matters, irrespective of the source.

That same night on television, an MP 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, the 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 transnational proportions with Chinese, Nigeriens, Burkinabes, Nigerians, Malians and their overseas backers all actively destroying Ghana’s environment.

During the week, the 2019 clip of the Chinese ambassador’s questions was played many times. He asked

• Who gives Chinese visas to come to Ghana?

• When they arrive at the Accra International Airport, how do they get to the galamsey sites?

• How come the Chinese do not go to South Africa which has more gold than Ghana to do galamsey? Answering it himself, he said it was because SA citizens will not allow it. We embrace it!

Additionally, how does the heavy equipment move from the port to the mining areas?

Summary

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, the 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!
Meanwhile, MPs want to have blaring police riders clearing us lesser mortals off the road for them as we suffocate in traffic, instead of addressing the crisis.

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 the former CEO of the African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya/Council Chair, Family Health University College, Accra.
E-mail: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com