Babies with no eyes, no noses?

What the ter­rifying reports told us, as early as three years ago, was what in Ghana, is usually termed abususƐm.

The concept, difficult to explain to non-Africans, is this: there are some words that denote the materialisa­tion of calamities in human affairs so horrendous that even merely naming the calamities must not be done at all! You know — just in case the words somehow became transformed — mysteriously — into horrible reality.

Among the Akans, words of that nature that are governed by taboo, include kokoram (a form of cancer); and oba a onni tire; (a baby without a head); and oba a onni ani/ hwen/ano (a baby without eyes/nose/or mouth).

Indeed, if someone wants to curse a woman who has badly offended him or her, the words: “Ɔba a onni tire/ ani/ano/hwen na wobewo no!” (You will give birth to a child without the organs listed, whether singly, or in any combination of them). The curse can throw the unfor­tunate accursed woman into a paroxysm of fear. She may then seek “a lifting” of the curse through expensive visits to allegedly powerful “deities” (such as Tigare, Brekune or Antoa Nyamaa).

The terrifying report that caused me to recall these terrifying occurrences had said that Aowin, in the Western Region, was recording a high number of births, where the babies came out without eyes, nose, ears and mouth. This, according to the medical staff at the Sewum, Aowin, Health Centre, was the result of illegal mining activities, or galamsey, in the area.

The Director of Nursing and Midwifery Services, had disclosed to the media that pregnant women in the com­munity were losing their babies “due to the water they drink, which is contaminated with chemicals used for galamsey.”

She had added that the river was highly-polluted, due to galamsey. Yet it continued to serve as the source of drink­ing water for the community. She appealed to the traditional leaders and other residents in the area to support the fight against galamsey, so as to en­able pregnant women to give birth to healthy children.

The Ghana Health Author­ities denied the story when it was first published. But the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) supported what the Aowin local medical staff had told the media. Cyanide and mercury used in galamsey could certainly cause birth ab­normalities of the type taking place at Aowin, the GMA’s Vice-President told the media.

Surely this wasn’t a matter that should create controversy? What would a midwife gain by inventing such a story? What must not be lost sight of is that such reports are a remind­er that the awful consequences of galamsey have long passed from being a nuisance to a worse stage where it has become life-threatening to poor Ghanaian villagers. Many months have passed since the story first appeared. But newer reports from Ashanti, says that such horrendous births have been recorded at the central hospital in Kumasi.

Apart from the obvious danger posed to humans by drinking polluted water, the chemicals used in galamsey can also seep into the soil on which foodstuffs are grown and contaminate it. That pro­cess poisons the food grown on the soil, and although the effects of the poisoning might not become manifest immedi­ately, they can erupt as horrible diseases in later life. These diseases can either cripple or kill the victims of the poisons.

The health authorities should therefore press the gov­ernment to revitalise its goal to eliminate galamsey, in order to safeguard the lives of the citizenry.

For instance, allowing galam­sey to occur snidely, as long as it does not take place near the banks of a river or water body, is self-defeating. For the whole idea of galamsey is based in deceit. The galamseyers want the government to believe that they can carry out “responsible mining.” But how can “respon­sible mining” be done with excavators and bulldozers that leave gaping craters in both rivers and farms?

How can “responsible min­ing” be carried out deliberately in “forest reserves” and then classified (with the collusion of corrupt officials) as merely “prospecting for gold”? All these tricks are known to the authorities, but they pretend they have no evidence with which to nail the galamseyers. That’s why many people think that too much political influ­ence is being exerted on the government to allow galamsey to continue on the quiet.

It needs to be emphasised that galamsey does not only pollute water: it also destroys large tracts of land with the craters it leaves behind. The land usually has to be aban­doned after the galamsey people have finished with it, because the craters, mounds and gullies, as well as “lakes” newly-created and filled with filthy water, become dangerous drowning traps to farmers. Indeed, anyone who has ever seen an abandoned galamsey ravaged plot of land (especially from the air) would be ex­cused if he/she imagined that some extra-terrestrial beings had descended on the land from space and engaged in an orgy of mad dancing, with “dinosaur” legs and feet forty or a hundred feet in diame­ter! These gigantic feet would have penetrated the earth to a depth of about thirty feet at each point. And as soon as the extra-terrestrials had left, water had shot up from beneath the soil, to fill the mammoth holes left behind.

The land was thus com­pletely destroyed — unusable; a permanent death-trap! Are we sane to allow this? What will our children’s children think of us, if by some luck, they manage to grow up on this land to see what devastation we have left to them as their inheritance? If our ancestors had left us land like that, would we be strutting about today, allotting ourselves great names, and displaying gold and rich adornments on our persons?