With Respect, Is The Present Okyehene A Genuine Environmental-Champion?

Yesterday, I was informed by Mr. Ben Awuku, the young overseer, of my family's freehold 14-square mile upland evergreen rainforest property, at the Akyem Juaso section of the Atewa Range, that he had spotted some bushcut illegal chainsaw lumber, in our land, which was clearly awaiting evacuation to market - in what is without question one of the most beautiful places on the surface of the planet Earth.

Knowing from past experience that precious few individuals, amongst the many well-qualified professionals in Ghanaian officialdom's forestry sector, actually care about such illegal activities, because policing our forests has been rendered a more or less pointless, sysyphean-task (by the numerous infractions of the laws and regulations governing the sector, by corrupt high-level regime-appointees, and their greedy cronies), I asked him to take a photograph of the said bushcut chainsaw lumber.

Sadly, environmental-lawlessness is now widespread in Akyem Abuakwa. Yet, the Okyenhene continues to say he is a conservation-champion. Wonders. How, ironical. The question is: Why is the Akyem Abuakwa State Council refusing to see the trillions our natural heritage is actually worth - priceless natural capital that can underpin an ecotourism green-economic-pillar?

It is that green post-COVID-19-path-to-development, not bauxite mining, which will create wealth that remains locally, and jobs galore for our younger generations, till the very end of time - were the Atewa Forest Reserve to be turned into a national park, by a stroke of President Akufo-Addo's pen, and all mining banned from it. Simple.

The Forestry Commission is useless and pointless on the ground. That is the sad reality, now, alas. That is why one is simply now fed up to the backteeth, with the abomination, which the ongoing brutal gang-rape of Mother Nature, in Akyem Abuakwa, today, represents.

That apocalyptic scenario, on the ground, in most of the landmass of Akyem Abuakwa, is a classic example of the impunity-of-the-rich-and-powerful, in today's Ghana. No question: There are lots of negative-types who posit that ours is a land of ace-hypocrites - but, for their information: Yen enma, Okyenman, ensei, da. Never.

With the greatest respect, notice is hereby served to the spineless hypocrites amongst the membership of the Akyem Abuakwa State Council: They must tell those of us who actually care about the natural heritage of Akyem Abuakwa, and recognise that as our future, as an aspirational people who are also blessed with wisdom, whether or not the current Okyenhene is a genuine environmental-champion - and, above all, whether or not the Akyem Abuakwa Abuakwa State Council itself, as presently constituted, exists to serve the best interests of Akyems. Enough is enough. Yoooooo. Hmmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem, ooooo - enti yewieye paaa enei? Asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa. We rest our case. Haaba.