Dear Ghana, that Hungry Poacher is Still a Criminal! Abilolo's Random Musings!

There is this familiar chorus that plays out in the court of public opinion whenever a story of crime and punishment emerges from the fringes of our noisy society. A photo surfaced as I went through Facebook today which caught my attention. It was a 3News report that had a poacher, gaunt and ragged with some face etched with desperation and poverty, being taken away to begin a 3-year jail term. And just as predictable as I saw, a wave of sympathy flooded the comments section. Folks see his hunger, tattered clothes, and begin to rationalize things. Most people weigh his need for sustenance against the abstract value of some bush meat, and for some, the scales tip in this guy's favour.

Yes, poverty is real and desperation for a source of livelihood is real. The struggle for sustenance in many rural communities is undeniable. And yes, there is a worrying indifference in parts of our society toward wildlife extinction. But none of these realities, taken together or separately, are sufficient grounds to question a judge for applying the law as it stands. Must our hunger pangs justify an embrace of a rule of the jungle? ENIGMA!

I think we need to understand we do not live in a lawless society, and the fact that we all have needs does not grant us the license to fulfill them by any means fair or foul. If we legitimize such a thing as "survival of the fittest," as a valid excuse for crime, we unravel the very well-knitted fabric of our society. Where do we draw the line? If a desperate man’s needs must be the excuse for killing animals in a protected area, then what business do we have condemning armed robbers or thieves? Their only crime, after all, is also to have yielded forcefully, illegally, and sometimes lethally, to a source of livelihood not rightfully theirs.

It is this flawed logic that leads a section of Ghanaians to vilify the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission and the judge who presided over the case involving the Ankasa National Park. To criticize a 3-year sentence for poaching is, in my considered view, a display of gross misjudgment. If anything, the sentence should be 10 years and perhaps you will agree at the end of this piece. We err gravely when we attribute innocence to these depraved souls simply because they look so miserable almost like victims when caught. My point is, a hungry face is not a free pass, just as the sick looking bone-faced Fulani herdsmen terrorizing our highways are not excused by their own hardships.

To understand the severity of this crime, one must understand the context and I hope I can help provide that, for clarity. First, we must all understand Poachers do not sneak into protected areas with slingshots and some rosary to say a prayer. They arrive fully armed, and those weapons are not just for the antelopes and warthogs. They are for the rangers, the visitors on safari or anyone who might stumble upon them in the bush. These are rural rogues, acutely aware that they are violating the law within a demarcated protected zone, yet they embark on a do-or-die mission with a chilling readiness to waste human lives.

I will never forget a terrifying encounter with this reality while on an assignment at the Mole National Park. Word had reached the poachers in fringe communities that a contingent of park officers had travelled to Accra for military training at the Asutsuare Base. Interpreting this as a rare window of opportunity, they invaded the park.

This, they deemed a rare opportunity to kill as many antelopes, bushbucks and warthogs as they could find. The poachers invaded the entire estate area with loud echoing sounds of gunshots that kept visitors and everyone awake and distraught in their hotel rooms. Indeed, I spent the rest of that night crouched under my bed. It felt like America had spotted militants of Iran's Khamenei at the park and had sent troops to finish them. We woke up the next morning to hear each other's account. It was a night of sheer terror that felt endless. The cowards who wielded those guns that night, likely looked just as hungry, tattered and desperate as the one in the news.

This is the reality we excuse when we call for kid-glove treatment for poachers and enemies of conservation. This is the kind of terror we risk unleashing when we compare poachers unfavorably to Galamsey operators and argue as if we lack the capacity to fight both. We must be careful as a nation about what we advocate for and who we make excuses for. We cannot allow the fight against one evil, like galamsey, to become the yardstick for tolerating another. A failure in one sector is not a valid reason to show leniency in another. Hunger is a serious societal ill, but it must never become the justification for imbecility, depravity, or the threat of violence.

Ghanaians must learn to walk and chew gum at the same time. It is always possible to confront every manifest crime distinctly and decisively, without putting the pursuit of justice for one victim on hold to accommodate another criminal. Let us build this nation not on the shifting sands of unfounded sentiment, but on the solid rock of well-reasoned thought and fair advocacy. Let the laws work. For if we protect the brave officers of the Forestry Commission and guardians of our natural heritage, and uphold the consequences for those who would do them harm, we protect not just the animals, but the very principle of a civilised society! As it is, Civilization is the goal!

Thanks for reading!
Michael A. Sarfo-Kantanka
[email protected]