Open letter 2 to President Akufo-Addo on your ‘online Presidency’ comment

Dear Mr. President,
Like many other Ghanaians, I did ask a clarifying question on what you really meant by putting your Presidency on the line in the matter of the galamsey menace at the onset of your tenure. See my previous publication on Modernghana.com, 10. October 2024).

In your latest campaign tour to the North to campaign for your Party’s Flagbearer, Dr. Bawumia, you clarified your infamous statement on the galamsey menace.

Respectfully Mr. President, to suggest that your Presidency was put online in the matter because you were ready to face the political cost of fighting it is indeed disappointing and even more heartbreaking.

Mr. President, to put your reputation or something (i.e. Presidency) on the line REALLY means that you needed to have vacated your Presidency if the galamsey fight was not won or contained but not losing a few votes which might be attributable to your unpopular policies and leadership style but not necessarily your ‘online Presidency’ comment.

The reality is that you have succeeded in graduating the ‘traditional galamsey’ in years back that even started before it transitions into what I call ‘high-tech galamsey’ (HTG) under your watchful eyes when you have openly put your Presidency on the online.

Mr. President, your actions have indeed exposed the very words that you expressed to fight the worsening galamsey phenomenon. It appears to me and many you never meant to truthfully fight this raging galamsey, which is an existential threat to our country. Your ‘online Presidency’ comment and the worsened HTG menace clearly suggest that you have indeed cajoled Ghanaians to only vote for you in your second term but no genuine intention to fight the environmental cancer.

For instance, your former Minister in the person of Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng at the Ministry of Environment, Science & Technology revealed Presidential complicity in the fight against galamsey. According to Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, there were ‘Presidential Galamseyers’ who were neck-deep in the galamsey practice and you were informed about those Galamseyers, but you chose to look away to date until Journalist Kevin Taylor exposed it.

Other scandals involving Mr. Charles Bissiw and others under the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Galamsey pointed to a losing battle against the galamsey menace you claimed to have put on the line.

Mr. President, are you not worried that almost all our major river bodies, e.g. 16 of them, are now turned into ‘milky rivers’ and many forest reserves devastated in the name of gold mining under your watch?

Mr. President, your obvious lack of political will to deal with the galamsey menace now is betrayed by your fee-dragging and half-hearted actions taken to assuage the angry divided Organized Labor front.

As we speak, the Galamseyers are back to the Birim river that has been heavily polluted despite your half-hearted commitment to the fight.

It is apparent that you have thrown your hands in the air and looking helpless while our forest reserves and water bodies are destroyed and polluted. Frankly, putting your Presidency on the line carried no meaning now.

Mr. President, among the incompetent management of the economy, unhinged borrowing, moral decadence, joblessness and thriving corruption scandals leading to a lot of hardships and hopelessness under your watch, the worsening galamsey menace is the cardinal ‘sin’ of your regime in my candid view.

Not only is the present generation threatened with these enormous social, economic and ecological consequences, but future generations are also negatively affected after you are dead and gone.

In just less than 2 months to go for your Presidency, it appears to me you have completely checked out on the galamsey fight while waiting for the inauguration of your successor on January 7, 2025.

Sadly Mr. President, your Presidency has failed us badly and posterity will not remember you fondly.

Sincerely yours,
A Citizen, but not a Spectator