The Aisha Huang Contretemps

I have kept clear of the Aisha Huang Affair, in which a 30-something-year-old “upper-class” Chinese woman commercial-sex worker, or demimonde, is widely alleged to have used her wily sexuality to get some of the most influential and powerful men of the land to facilitate her wanton exploitation and degradation of the country’s water bodies and forestry resources in the ungodly name of “Galamsey” or illegal mining.

I have absolutely no doubt that a remarkable number of the news stories involving big-time Ghanaian politicians and Ms. Huang are right on the money, as it were. Our leaders, at least a remarkable percentage of them, have long been known to have a pathologically soft spot for cheap sex, particularly if such sex comes with the label of “Eurasia.” It is part of the deeply ingrained inferiority complex that comes with decades of colonial and neocolonial denigration of the proverbial African Personality.

But what scandalizes me the most is the fact that this single Chinese high-maintenance prostitute should hog the country’s media spotlight for as long as she has. And I keep wondering whether any Ghanaian, or African, for that matter, would be allowed by the Beijing authorities to wreak half the havoc that Ms. Huang is widely alleged to have wreaked on our environmental resources. I also assume that much of this act of indescribable depravity occurred in our country under the watch of the Rawlings-founded National Democratic Congress (NDC), in particular, under the chaotic tenures of President John Evans Atta-Mills, late, and the latter’s arch-lieutenant, Mr. John Dramani Mahama. Indeed, it was during the tenure of President Mahama that a Second-Deputy Chinese Foreign Minister held a well-attended press conference in Accra, Ghana’s capital, and caustically lambasted the Mahama government for the abjectly shabby treatment allegedly meted Chinese nationals engaged in the wanton destruction of our ecosystem.

You begin to wonder what Divine Providence deposited underneath the skull of the average Ghanaian politician on Creation’s Day. Cassava powder, maybe? Which is precisely why I had some misgivings when I came across a news report in which the Asante Regional Minister, Mr. Simon Osei-Mensah, was reported to have virulently pooh-poohed a dastardly attempt by an unnamed media operative to smear his hard-earned reputation (See “I’m Not ‘Cozy’ with Asia [sic] Huang – Osei-Mensah” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/11/17). I had some misgivings because for most of the period that Aisha Huang has been in the Galamsey business in the country, the National Democratic Congress has held the reins of governance. But, of course, I am also not that naïve to recognize the fact that protagonists from both major parties have played a considerable role in the Galamsey menace. I simply don’t buy the idea that, somehow, it was only during the past 5 months that Mr. Osei-Mensah became Asante Regional Minister that the wanton devastation of the region’s environment became even worse than ever before.

I am also not that naïve to take Mr. Osei-Mensah’s pontifical protestations at face value. What is most significant to observe here, though, is the steely determination by both Mr. John Peter Amewu, the Lands and Mineral Resources Minister, and President Akufo-Addo to ensure that the wantonly destructive activities of Galamsey in the country effectively become a thing of the past. There can be absolutely no gainsaying the fact that the Chinese have significantly contributed to the development of the Ghanaian economy and culture during the past couple of decades. And here, of course, I have in mind the construction of our National Theater and the Bui Hydroelectric Power Project. Nonetheless, even as President Akufo-Addo poignantly put it the other day, “We have absolutely no hatred, whatsoever, for the Chinese. But our laws must be enforced, if our future as a nation is not to be totally destroyed.” This is what is called visionary leadership.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 25, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]