Bring Back The Asafo To Defeat Galamsey!

HUMANKIND is one of the most destructive creatures in the Universe.

It has unravelled many of the greatest secrets of Nature, and uses them to destroy Nature!

The knowledge that Science has revealed to humankind has enabled humans to split the atom, and move on to construct atomic, hydrogen and neutron bombs. Processes such as nuclear fusion and fission can end life on Planet Earth altogether. But man is still at it – pursuing more knowledge on neutrinos, dark matter and dark energy.

Yes, sadly, humankind is capable of unlimited evil. We can love one another. We're able to create beautiful works of art; build lovely edifices; and use Nature’s forces to travel around Planet Earth and beyond its orbit.

But beneath all that beauty lies a tendency to wreck and devour; to burn and to vaporise; to pollute and eviscerate the Nature we should adore.

Ghana, for instance, has one of the more benign climates in the world – warm and clear for most parts of the year. That fine climatic balance enables us to grow a large part of our own food. We can live a life that's relatively pleasant, especially when we tweak our natural conditions with the blessings that Science has brought us – electricity (air-conditioners and refrigerators) and electronics (computers, the Internet and other means of communication).

But the beastliness that lurks in us propels us to steal from one another. We trample upon one another as if we were dirt. We go to church to worship and return home to plot fraud and theft.

Still, our evil propensities are not assuaged. We do not merely seek to monopolise for ourselves and our families, the goodies that all of us should share equally.

No! We want to kill the Earth itself, here in Ghana! For what is The Earth without water?

Yet, we, in our wisdom, have embarked on what we think is a most “profitable” enterprise, whereby we destroy the water in our rivers with mercury, arsenic and other chemicals – in order to produce gold!

Can humans drink gold?

Can humans cook their food with gold?

Do humans wash their dirty clothing or indeed their bodies with gold? Elementary, isn't it?

We cannot substitute gold for water. We may be able to buy water with gold from elsewhere. But what if they too run out of water, or refuse to sell water to us because they despise us as fools?

What we are doing is MADNESS PERSONIFIED.

We know it is.

We say it is.

But we lack the resolve to STOP it. Why? Because we don’t want to “hurt” those destroying the water, since they are members of our families; or are members of our political party; or are our friends.

So, because of these ties, we should sit and watch them destroy our nation and make it uninhabitable to our children's children? Our government says, “No!”

And it puts soldiers and policemen on the trail of those who destroy the water. But the water-murderers have money. And everyone needs money.

So before the soldiers and policemen reach the sites where water is being destroyed, mobile phones have warned the water-murderers to move elsewhere.

And because money talks, excavators and other wrecking machines that are seized find their way back to their owners.

The most amazing thing is that despite the numerous road-blocks they have mounted on our roads, our police force cannot tell us how the machines got past them to the rivers and water-bodies! But we continue to pay them!

We’re talking, mind you, about huge machines, many of which have to be carried on low-loaders.

Yet they can get “LOST”!

500 seized; 137 inventoried.

X-number parked at police stations; only Y-number traced.

What in hell’s name is going on?

Gold-winning is what is going on!

It doesn’t happen only in Ghana. California had its “gold rush”; Mexico; the Incas – civilisations have been built on gold and been liquidated by gold.

We have historians who should be warning us about these things. But where are they? We have social scientists who can demonstrate to us the path of self-destruction upon which we have embarked.

But would we listen, if they talked?

(To borrow a Nigerian term, “man most whack!”)

Only one measure is capable of saving us at this stage: a mass re-awakening of our society to do battle against galamsey.

In almost every town and village of this country, there is a tradition of the existence of Asafo or Kyirem group, which, before the British brought their police force, was mobilised whenever atetenkorona, (human heart harvesters) akodimaa, (rapists) adwotwafoƆ (highway robbers) or other elements who made life unsustainable in a community, dared to make their appearance.

Drums would be beaten and word would spread very rapidly that people should not go about alone but in groups. Patrols led by hunters would be organised and the wayfarers waylaid!

Instant justice would be applied to those caught. Word would be spread around neighbouring communities: “Don’t go by yourself to such a community. Wait until others need to go there, and then go together. And use only open roads, not hidden bush paths. And be ready to stop and answer questions, for the people are prepared for war!” That's how our societies survived.

Well, we are at war again. We have a proverb which says that “AsƐm keseƐ Ɛreba a, frankaa nnsi so!”(When a calamity of immense proportions is occurring, it doesn’t come flying a flag!”)

Actually, we have flown a flag. We called it “GALAMSTOP.” But it hasn't worked. It's time to go back to our traditional method of self-defence.

We must bring back our Asafo and Kyirem groups!

The question is “HOW”? Watch this space!

By CAMERON DUODU