Anas, Please Release The "Galamsey Video" At Once!

A lot of Ghanaians view the efforts being made by our Government to end galamsey and thereby save our rivers and water-bodies from eternal destruction, as some sort of “balancing” game.

Yes, the destruction of the drinking water that will enable generations yet unborn to survive on this land bequeathed to us by our ancestors, must cease.

But at the same time, those who are destroying the drinking water must not be “demonised” or punished but must be handled with kid gloves. This is because they have the vote. And they can make noise. So care must be taken to devise clever mechanisms by which they can be helped to operate legally and thereby earn a “decent living” for themselves and their families.

But this attitude begs one extremely serious question: how did “small-scale ” mining for gold become the illegal business known as “galamsey” in the first place, and why?

Was it not precisely the Government's concern to enable unemployed youths to find employment through legal “small-scale mining” that the floodgates to galamsey operations were first opened, with “big-scale” lammergeyer jumping into the fray, infiltrating the galamsey scene by applying huge outlays of capital to travel to China to import both excavators and changfan machines as well as Chinese technicians to man them?

Is that not how a concerted assault began, not only on the land (as small-scale miners were wont to do) but on mighty rivers once feared by all and sundry – on an industrial scale?

Did small-scale miners have the capability to ruin the River Ankobra?

Was it small-scale miners who destroyed the River Pra? Oti? Birem? Densu? Tanoh? Offin and countless streams whose names now bring tears to the eyes of many a villager? Rivers and streams like Supong? Saawoben? Akoosi ?Pusupusu?

No – the big operators camouflaged themselves as small-scale miners, or commandeered small-scale miners as their frontmen, and launched their dirty, ruthless, unconscionable war against our rivers and streams. If they did it once, they can do it again – and in a much more lethalmanner, for they have gained a great deal of experience over the past two decades.

Their war against our rivers and environment has now brought us to the brink of total disaster.Worse, by obliging our government to spend huge sums of money to try and retrieve something out of the existing ultra-bleak situation, a new problem has arisen that is extremely dangerous.

That new situation is this: some of the soldiers and policemen who constitute “Operation Vanguard”, the body that is supposed to arrest galamseyers wherever it sees them, have been infected with the same get-rich-quick mentality as motivates the galamseyers. Last week, a number of soldiers were placed under military detention for up to 90 days, and cashiered from the army, for corrupt activities connected to galamsey.

Alas – that is a major setback for the anti-galamsey campaign. Are there other saboteurs within Operation Vanguard who have not yet been flushed out?

Already, fingers are being pointed by one part of Operation Vanguard against the other: why have no policemenbeen punished as severely as the soldiers, it's being asked. Are the police elements within the Operation some sort of saints or what?

This is truly, a worst-case scenario: for a “house divided against itself cannot stand.” If the police and the army are viewing one another with suspicion and even resentment, who stands to gain? The galamseyers, of course. And they know it. In one of their statements, their association mockingly pointed out that not even the Rawlings Government could suppress galamsey by force! In other words, humanitarian governments like that of President Akufo-Addo are, I their view, just joking.

So, they've been working to subvert the efforts of Operation Vanguard, well aware, as they are, that the mere sight of gold can turn even the most reasonable of men – people of integrity with impeccable credentials -- into greedy beasts.

It is in this light that what the Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guidenewspaper, Mr Kweku Baako Jnr., is reported to have said on 13 June 2018, namely, that investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, will soon expose chiefs, politicians and persons in the security services, who are knee-deep in galamsey”, assumes great significance.

QUOTE: According to [Mr Baako] the sort of extensive investigative work done by his protégé (Anas). was so ‘explosive’ [it] will blow the minds of Ghanaians [when they see] the extent to which big men in the country have been unfair to Ghana, by supervising the destruction of the environment for their selfish interests. He said the magnitude of the exposé on the judges’ bribery scandal comes nowhere near what has been unearthed in the galamsey investigations. UNQUOTE

I trust this is not an attempt by My Kweku Baako to divert attention from the fallout from the Anas/Kwasi Nyantakyi bribery controversy. Nor an exercise aimed at publicising a genuine scoop for commercial purposes.

I do entreat Kweku Baako and Anas to put patriotism first and release this galamsey film as quickly as possible, for, as I have explained, the longer Operation Vanguard lasts, the more likely it is that unsavoury developments can envelope it and cripple it.

And, of course, they must be aware – clever as they are – that once members of the armed forces are seen to have become corruptible, the very security of the state is placed in utter peril.

If the “kingpins” of galamsey are named and shamed, as Mr Baako claims the video of Anas can do, then galamsey operations can end. For “if you cut off the head of a snake after you've killed it, then you eliminate the possibility that the snake might “resurrect itself” after it has seemingly “died” from the initial shock you administered to its system when you first “killed” it.

I therefore urge Anas to release his video without further ado. I saw the magnificent video he did on galamsey for Aljazeera. It was really very good indeed. If he has taken the story forward and developed it further, so much the better.

So Anas, over to you! I am appealing to you, on behalf of your nation, to set your guns blazing on galamsey.

Believe me there is very little time left to save the situation for – our children's children and their children.