Galamsey, Chiefs, and the Fatal Illusion of State Control: A Call to Return Power to the People

Some pure gold nuggets from Offin river

On August 6, 2025, eight lives were tragically lost en route to Obuasi for the launch of the Ghana government’s latest initiative: the Responsible Small-Scale Mining Programme. May their souls rest in peace. Their deaths are not just a national tragedy. They symbolize a much deeper institutional failure and a state that continues to misdiagnose the root causes of illegal mining, or galamsey, and then prescribes the wrong cures.

For decades, the nation has operated under the illusion that illegal mining can be resolved through rebranding, surveillance, enforcement, and centralized bureaucracy. The crisis, however, is not about criminal behavior or lack of technology. It is a structural, historical, and cultural failure rooted in the disconnection between land ownership, community power, and state legitimacy.

In Ghana, all minerals beneath the surface belong to the state, as defined by the 1992 Constitution and the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703). Yet the surface of the land belongs to stools, clans, and families. This contradiction creates confusion and undermines trust between the people and the government. In African societies, land is never just territory. It is ancestry, identity, dignity, and survival. People will die for land. And if reincarnation were real, they would return and die for it again. Across Ghana, chieftaincy disputes, from Dagbon to Akyem and from Anlo to Denkyira, primarily concern land ownership, who has the authority to speak for it, and who benefits from its wealth.

This issue is deeply personal for me. My ancestral roots trace back to Dunkwa-Offin, a town long associated with gold mining and the violence, poverty, and environmental degradation it has left behind. I devoted my entire doctoral dissertation to this very issue. I walked through those communities, conducted interviews, sat with elders, miners, chiefs, youth, and government officials. What I discovered on the ground was shocking. Despite the richness of the soil and the promises of national development, the people live in fear, frustration, and despair. The land has become a site of spiritual desecration, political neglect, and legal confusion.

Meanwhile, if gold were discovered today on my mother's ancestral land in Wusuta, I would not remain here across the ocean. I would be the first to return, mobilize my family, and begin mining. I would not care whether it is called galamsey, small-scale mining, or surface mining. What matters is not the name but the ownership and the benefit. You cannot ask people to sit in poverty while their ancestral lands are handed over to foreign companies, often Chinese, protected by armed soldiers, in the name of legality and national development. That arrangement will not work. People will resist. Even if it takes two billion years, they will return and fight again for what belongs to them.

The state’s approach has primarily been to militarize the problem. It has sent soldiers, deployed drones, formed task forces, and revoked licenses. It has launched one initiative after another, and yet illegal mining continues. Even if the government issues two thousand licenses to community mining cooperatives, irresponsible mining will persist. The question remains: Who monitors the monitors? Who polices the police? The Environmental Protection Agency is understaffed. District Assemblies are often politicized. Security agencies have been compromised. In many places, the state has lost legitimacy.

There is one institution that still retains cultural legitimacy in our communities: the chieftaincy institution. Sadly, this institution has lost all absolute authority. Chiefs appear silent not because they do not care, but because they have no power. They can no longer enforce land-use rules or protect their environment. They are blamed for not stopping illegal mining, even though the law has left them helpless. What they need is not criticism. They need structural reform.

While a student at the University of Cape Coast, I recall a robust conversation I once had with Nana Kwabena Nketia of Esikado, known in academia as Professor Mason, formerly of the University of Cape Coast’s History Department. We discussed the state of the country and the collapse of traditional institutions. He looked me in the eye and said, “Manaseh, what can we do? We are just like paper tigers.” That sentence has stayed with me ever since. Our chiefs, elders, and intellectuals have the wisdom and the ancestral memory. Yet they have no claws. Their authority has been reduced to ceremony. This must change.

We must also look at global best practices. In the United States and Canada, mineral rights often belong to landowners. In Texas, families can own both the land and the oil beneath it. This legal foundation enabled individuals such as John D. Rockefeller, the Hunt family, and the Bass brothers to accumulate and maintain generational wealth. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire was built through partnerships with landowners. In Texas today, families lease their lands to companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil, and in return, they receive royalties. In 2022 alone, Texas earned over sixteen billion dollars from oil and gas taxes, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In Canada, particularly in provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, mineral rights are divided between the Crown and private individuals. Landowners negotiate directly with companies, and the state earns its share through taxation. These arrangements have allowed communities to prosper while ensuring environmental accountability. The government does not control all resources but regulates their development.

Imagine if Ghana followed a similar model. Communities like Dunkwa-Offin and Obuasi could retain control of their lands, partner with responsible companies, and ensure that mining was done sustainably and equitably. Chiefs could act as custodians of both the land and the process. Instead, we have a centralized rentier state that has handed out mining concessions for over 150 years, yet left these communities in ruins. Obuasi has been producing gold for over a century, but it is no more developed than Ho, a town with no mining at all. What does that tell us?

The problem is not just poor policy. It is poor political design. Ghana’s governance structure is a colonial inheritance that centralizes power, extracts wealth, and marginalizes local authority. We changed the governors but kept the system. Unless we reimagine the very foundation of governance, nothing will change.

Retooling the chieftaincy institution is not optional. It is the only sustainable path forward. Chiefs must be legally empowered to co-govern. Ghana must abolish or transform the Council of State into a Second Chamber of Parliament composed of rightfully enstooled and gazetted chiefs. This chamber should be constitutionally protected, rotationally selected, and free from partisan control. It should possess subpoena powers, policy review authority, and local oversight functions, especially in land and environmental governance. Chiefs must be able to work directly with municipal and district assemblies. They must no longer be guests in their jurisdictions.

This is not a sentimental call for the past. It is a sober vision for the future. We need governance rooted in local legitimacy and guided by ancestral values. Our chiefs must not be reduced to custodians of festivals. They must become stewards of the land, protectors of our resources, and partners in national development.

We have tried the drones. We have attempted to use the guns. We have tried the political slogans. None of them has worked. The way forward lies not in force, but in wisdom. The wisdom of our ancestors. The authority of our chiefs. The ownership of our communities. The courage of our government to relinquish a monopoly and embrace partnership.

Let the deaths of the eight citizens who died on their way to Obuasi not be in vain. Let them mark the end of failed approaches and the beginning of a new era. Let us rethink our governance. Let us return to our roots. Let us rebuild Ghana from the stool up.

-- Manaseh Mawufemor Mintah, PhD
(Manaseh Mintah is a Policy Analyst with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He holds graduate degrees in law, environmental studies, and international development, and is originally from Dunkwa-Offin. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.)