When the Rivers Traced Men to Town Because Men Blocked Their Natural Ways with Greedy Galamsey Escapades

There was a time when rivers quietly knew their paths. They meandered through forests, nourished farms, replenished wetlands, and finally found their way to the sea. They did not knock on people’s doors. They did not invade bedrooms, schools, churches, markets, or hospitals. They remained faithful to the routes that nature had designed for them.

There is an old African proverb that says, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” But there is another truth that modern Ghana is painfully learning: nature never forgets. When humanity refuses to respect the laws of nature, nature eventually writes its own verdict without apology. Today, sadly in writing a verdict, the rivers appear to be tracing humanity back to the towns and cities to engage the men and women who kidnapped their natural ways.

Every rainy season in Ghana brings familiar scenes of grief: homes submerged, bridges washed away, businesses destroyed, families displaced, and precious lives lost. Television screens become galleries of despair, while social media fills with videos of floodwaters swallowing entire communities. In our ostrich approaches to things without taken responsibility often describe these tragedies as “natural disasters.” But are they entirely natural?

The uncomfortable truth is that many of these floods are not merely acts of nature. They are consequences of human choices fuelled by greed and irresponsibility.

Across Ghana, the relentless scourge of illegal mining popularly known as galamsey has become one of the greatest assaults on the country’s rivers and landscapes. In the relentless pursuit of quick wealth, river channels are excavated, diverted, narrowed, or completely blocked by heaps of mine waste, loose sediment, abandoned pits, and makeshift embankments. Water that once flowed freely is forced to seek alternative routes. What better routes will be found than the cities and towns where we dwell?

Hydrology is uncompromising. Water obeys the laws of gravity, not the wishes of politicians, miners, or land developers. When its natural channels are obstructed, it simply creates new ones often through villages, farms, roads, and homes. In many mining communities, what appears to be an unprecedented flood is frequently intensified by years of interference with river systems. Rivers are not taking revenge; they are merely reclaiming the corridors that human greed has denied them for years.

Yet the problem does not end only in the mining belts. Far away in Accra the seat of government, where one would have expected to be a safe haven and other rapidly expanding cities, another form of environmental greed quietly unfolds.

Wetlands that once absorbed floodwaters have become luxury estates. Natural waterways have been reduced to housing plots. Seasonal streams have disappeared beneath concrete. Developers advertise beautiful homes where marshes once stored excess rainfall. Buyers celebrate property ownership without asking a simple but critical question: What occupied this land before the buildings arrived?  The sad reality is that, out of greed city authorities and chiefs connive to give away these lands against conscience.

But Nature never forgets

Wetlands function as the kidneys and sponges of urban ecosystems. During heavy rainfall, they temporarily store enormous volumes of water, reducing flood peaks and protecting downstream communities. When these natural buffers are filled with concrete and asphalt, the water does not disappear. It searches for the space that humans have stolen from it. Nature will always fight back no matter how long it keeps silent. And one thing for sure is that, whenever nature fights back, it is not pleasant. The result is painfully predictable whenever the rivers once chased away with their ways occupied by humans simply returns.

Compounding this crisis is our everyday culture of environmental negligence. Plastic bottles, sachet water wrappers, discarded furniture, construction debris, and household refuse routinely find their way into drains and waterways. Drainage systems designed to transport storm water become clogged long before the rainy season reaches its peak.

“Then the rains arrive.

The water cannot pass.

It rises.

It spreads.

It enters homes.

Lives are lost

Properties are washed away”

Again, the question must be asked: Did the rain cause the disaster alone, or did our own actions prepare the stage upon which the disaster unfolded? And in that context can we call this a natural disaster? May be in our case it should rather be termed as “greedy disaster” or “irresponsibility disaster” and leave natural disaster out.

On the other hand, I hear the so called experts screaming on top of their voices to lay this at the door steps of climate change. Climate change undoubtedly contributes to more intense rainfall events across many parts of the world, including West Africa. But climate change should not become the convenient explanation that allows us to ignore our own responsibility. Extreme rainfall becomes catastrophic flooding when poor environmental governance, illegal mining, weak planning enforcement, and irresponsible waste disposal amplify its impacts through greed.

In truth, Ghana is fighting two storms simultaneously: one falling from the sky and another created by human hands.

As a student of morality, I dare say this is not merely an environmental issue. It is a moral crisis. Galamsey is more than an illegal economic activity; it represents a profound breach of our duty to future generations. It exchanges rivers that sustain life for gold that enriches only a few. It sacrifices public welfare for private gain. It converts shared natural resources into instruments of collective suffering.

Likewise, building on wetlands and obstructing waterways reflects a dangerous belief that short-term profit is more valuable than long-term public safety. And we must all be reminded that:

Every blocked river has a memory.

Every filled wetland remembers.

Every drainage choked with plastic silently waits for the next heavy rain to revenge.

The floodwaters are not creating new paths; they are just reclaiming old ones.

This should awaken our national conscience.

Government must enforce environmental laws without fear or favour. Illegal mining operations that destroy river systems must be dismantled decisively. Watercourses must be restored through scientifically informed river rehabilitation. Wetlands should be legally protected rather than converted into real estate. Urban planning regulations must be applied consistently, regardless of political influence or economic status without excuses less we all likewise perish.

But government action alone is insufficient. Citizens must reject the culture of environmental indifference. Every plastic bag thrown into a gutter, every illegal structure erected on a watercourse, every silence maintained in the face of environmental destruction contributes to the next flood disaster.

Environmental stewardship is not only a policy obligation; it is a civic duty and, for many Ghanaians, a sacred responsibility. Humanity was entrusted with creation not as owners free to exploit it without limit, but as stewards accountable for its care. When stewardship gives way to greed, creation itself bears witness against us.

Perhaps the floods are telling Ghana something that statistics alone cannot communicate.

The rivers are not angry, they are homeless.

Having been driven from their ancient channels by excavators, concrete, refuse, and unchecked greed, they are tracing humanity to the very towns where their rightful paths have been erased. The rivers are tracing humans into their homes to hold a dialogue on their orphan state! When that happens, let no men cry wolf for they are not here to destroy but to reclaim what was taken from them. Better still, as Ghana has become the headquarters of reparations, these rivers are tracing us into our homes to demand reparations for they have been unjustifiably treated for decades. The next time floodwaters rush through our streets, we should resist asking only, “Why did the river come here?”

We should first ask the harder question:

“Why did we first take what belong to the rivers and drove the river away?”

By Rev Paul Abudulai Yelinje

Watsap: +233546369500

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