He leadeth me besides the still waters; He restoreth my soul: Ps 23:2b.
Lush, verdant, and fertile, even in the dryness of the harmattan weather. Shrub, grass, farms, bushes, and forests were the norm when I grew up in Goamu Asamang in the Asufiti North District of the then Brong Ahafo Region. We drank from streams, wells, and boreholes. We enjoyed freshly harvested fruit, vegetable, and other food items. Our main proteins were legumes, dried fish and dried meat, fresh fish and fresh meat were a rare occurrence for us who dwelled in the villages.
We drunk from the stream, with no concern for coliform, mold, or algae. We drunk from the well but rarely got sick. And when we did, we didn’t think to ascribe it to the water or the food. Was it due to the hygiene hypothesis?
Today, Ghana, our beloved nation, continues to devolve into a failed state, and national health emergency staring us in our faces with impunity as we sit and play politics with “artisanal mining” popularly knows as “galamsey.” The leads of the two major political parties behave as though they will be spared with the consequences of the damage that galamsey is leaving in its trail.
Mercury in our foods. Arsenic in our water. Yes, they may have the money to test every corn, yam, pepper, kontomire, or avocado that makes it on their plates and palates. Every king, chief, queen mother, assembly member, DCE, MP, Minister, and government appointee may be able to afford to eat only imported food and drink only imported water.
But I ask, will their children’s friends, their neighbors, their siblings, aunties and uncles be able to? Will they be able to afford the fallout from the pandemic that is about to devastate our land? Various cancers, birth defects, early onset dementia, diseases of blood vessels resulting in heart attacks, strokes, and kidney diseases will soon implode like raging fires, worse that the fires of 1983. Such health outcomes will not only overburden our already frail and tenuous health care systems, but it will also cripple our economy.
We sit on gold, diamond, bauxite, aluminum, cobalt, oil. Our land is rich, pleasantly and willingly suppling us with cocoa, timber, cashew, maize, yams, cassava, pineapples, and more. And instead of collectively protecting our land, we welcomed foreigners and gave them concessions so they would infuse poisonous substances into our lands. And, while they wouldn’t transfer technology for making toothpick to our nation, we knelt in gratitude as they taught us how to rob Asaase Yaa of the best gifts she has for us: clean water, bounteous harvest, and abundance of health.
For those who do not recall what the delayed response to the HIV pandemic did to the world in the late 1980s and 1990s, I urge you to see the movie, “And the band played on!” African leaders are showing courage and speaking truth to world leaders to stop making policies that penalize African nations and African immigrants for seeking better economic opportunities or fleeing from war. It is impressive that we can call out the others. But we cannot at the same time fail to address the challenges that sit at our doorsteps. But there is opportunity for redemption.
To my elders, the royal leaders whose ancestors built the villages, towns, cities, and kingdoms that came together to build the nation Ghana, now is the time to act. Because soon there will be revolt that no single complicit leader will be able to escape. To our elected and appointed leaders, NOW is the time to ACT. I declare that once the lightning strikes and the forest of angst that fills the hearts and minds of Ghanaians, home and abroad, is set ablaze, no political leader will be spared.
But perhaps more than any other reason, the incentive to act is not the survival of a dynasty or a political institution. Rather the best reason to act now, rather than later, is that this is our best chance at saving ourselves. The world is watching for our nation to become despondent. Then they will come in with loan programs that will sink us further the hell hole of economic servitude.
We would need to import more food. We would need to import water. We would need to import more medical supplies. The percentage of workforce strong enough to contribute to the economy will dwindle and become infinitesimal. Our GDP will nosedive into the bowels of darkness.
Then there will be an influx of foreign-born individuals who will come in to “help rebuild the nation.” Foreign players will compel us to rewrite our land tenure laws. And before we know it, most of Ghana’s lands will be owned by non-Africans.
Some have very reasonably asked, “what will the youth do when galamsey is halted?” Youth unemployment is an equally important issue of national interest that needs to be addressed with equal urgency. But the health costs of any further delayed response to galamsey is so deleterious to wager unemployment as a precondition to ending this threat to our national sovereignty.
Do not relegate my words to the realms of the speculative. Our scientists and economists have cautioned for many years. Our rivers have helplessly declared the dire state of affairs by displaying the now perpetual brown coloration of their waters. Their fish rendered inedible. Images and videos of children born with birth defects have gone viral. Any further delay in acting and we risk numbing our senses to this crisis our nation has faced for ages. Alarm fatigue is real and dangerous.
So Mr. President, Madam Vice President, Minister of Trade and Industry, Minister of Interior, Leadership of the Ghana Standards Board, Members of Parliament, Judiciary and other arms of law enforcement, chiefs and other traditional leaders, please take off the shades, throw away the garb of political cavorting, abandon the grandstanding, rise to the occasion and end this calamity once and for all.
Government can take control of the importation of mercury. Send the military into the forests to arrest those devastating our lands. Yes, we need to go to war against galamsey. NOW is the time for leadership and not politics. Now is the time for action.
It is time we rise to action; to robe the lady that we are raping and robbing day and night.
I remind you of the wise words of Dr. Ephraim Amu who, many years ago, counseled us thus:
Yɛn ara asaase ni;
Ɛyɛ aboɔ den den de ma yεn,
Mogya a nananom hwie gu
Nya de to hɔ ma yɛn,
And let not the words of our national anthem, crafted to celebrate the independent won for us through the blood and toil of our forefathers and our foremothers, be just an item to be checked off during national events and appearances of our presidents and anyone representing our nation. Let’s heed and act upon the words,
God bless our homeland Ghana,
And make our nation great and strong,
Bold to defend for ever,
The cause of Freedom and of Right.
Article By Dr Gabriel Asumeng, US-Based Ghanaian Medical Practitioner