Opinion: Akufo-Addo alone cannot be blamed for difficulties encountered in the fight against “Galamsey”

Following the press statement released by Ghana Water Company Ltd expressing concern about the devastating effects of illegal mining activities on the production of safe drinking water for the masses, many a Ghanaian has expressed disgust if not anger, about these developments.

The calls on the government to reinvigorate efforts to fight galamsey have intensified. Many of the critics have been lampooning President Akufo-Addo over the failure to root out the galamsey menace. They believe he reneged on his promise to fight the canker when he said he had put his presidency on the line over the fight.

The media was very instrumental in advocating and supporting the President in his determination to ruthlessly defeat the cancerous menace of galamsey. Their contributions can never be discounted.

While I cannot emphatically state that the approach adopted by the government to deal with galamsey has been perfect, it is important to recognize the fact that so much was done till the 2020 elections approached.

The media, we can all attest to this fact, left Akufo-Addo in the lurch in the year 2020. They abandoned the President in his fight against galamsey. That, if you ask me, contributed to the inertia witnessed in this fight.

The NDC, in one breath, sent Sammy Gyamfi to the mining areas where the environment had been polluted with turbid water bodies and forests deforested gravely, filmed them and posted out there.

In those videos, Sammy Gyamfi and his charges were attacking the government, accusing President Akufo-Addo of failing to deal with the galamsey menace.

In another breath, Mahama at a campaign rally vowed to free all jailed illegal miners if he becomes president. The media kept quiet about this. Mahama was undermining the galamsey fight with that pledge but the media chose to sit on the fence.

Mahama again clandestinely deployed Dr Tony Aubynn, Kwaku Boahen and other kingpins into the galamsey prone areas where they asked them to vote for Mahama so that they would be given unfettered access into the galamsey sites to work. This video was widely played, but the media kept quiet.

The negative campaigns Mahama and his NDC executives waged against the efforts of the government to fight galamsey yielded fruits for the NDC as the NPP lost almost all the seats in the galamsey areas. Akufo-Addo equally lost votes in the mining areas.

In effect, the war against illegal mining waged by Akufo-Addo adversely affected the political fortunes of the ruling NPP. The media, once again, didn’t see it as pertinent to talk about these issues.

If today, we are talking about which people to blame for the current state of the fight against galamsey, it would be the height of dishonesty for anybody to single out His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for what is happening with the galamsey fight.

The media should equally be blamed for the current situation as they looked on while the NDC was taking advantage of the situation and undermined all the efforts put into the fight against illegal mining.

The NDC is the main reason why we are where we find ourselves today. They ‘criticized’ the supposed lack of political will and determination to root out illegal mining even though the government was still working hard to fix the situation, while clandestinely sent people into the mining areas to encourage them to destroy the environment as they told the miners that “galamsey is older than Ghana, vote for Mahama and come back to do your galamsey”

Stop blaming only Akufo-Addo for the laxity in the fight against galamsey. The media abandoned him as they looked on while the NDC went to great lengths to undermine the efforts put into the fight. The NDC has no moral justification to talk about galamsey since they are the key enablers of same.

The writer is P K Sarpong, Whispers from the Corridors of the Thinking Place

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