Between 2011- 2013, I used to return to my abode in Tema from Accra via the motorway after 9pm.
On each of these days, l met scores of flat articulated trailers hauling excavators out of the Greater Accra Region to other parts of the country. I must emphasize here that, it was a daily affair and my information is, it has not ceased. No wonder that there are more excavators in Ghana than the whole of Africa – kind courtesy, President John Dramani Mahama.
Meanwhile, we had intelligence bodies such as the Bureau for National Investigations (BNI) which has now corrupted the name of one of our indigenous banks, NIB, National Security and CID of the Ghana Police Service, among others.
The aforementioned are funded by the State and charged with smelling such smouldering issues/dangers and taking appropriate steps to stem the situation – HUNDREDS OF EXCAVATORS POURING UNTO OUR MARKET SPACES ON A DAILY BASIS AND NONE HAD ISSUES WITH SAME? – Are they used in preparing meals for the teeming unemployed youth, FSHS students or what?
We all sat down unconcerned, and as my friend Kwaku from ‘Asem Betowoa’ cottage will aptly put it – they sat like Egyptian mummies and indeed as if nothing was at stake and or was happening.
Now our forest cover has been ‘quartered’, river bodies not only polluted with dangerous chemicals but some have “evacuated” to eternity, never to return again.
University of Mines & Technology (UMaT) seems to have an antidote to the pollution and not the river bodies “evacuating to eternity”.
RIVER SUBRI ANALOGY
On the issue of river bodies “evacuating”, kindly permit me to respectfully share with you what my late Grandfather said his father shared with him years ago.
There was once a river, Subri, which transversed the immediate outskirt of my Village, Asante Effiduasi.
It served as their source of drinking water, provided fish to meet their protein requirement and a host of benefits including, but not limited to, snails.
As the population increased, Subri, found itself virtually in the middle of the township surrounded by hamlets and whatever. Shrubs and trees providing cover for same were threatened by the inhabitants. In no time, Subri began to dry up and resurfaced periodically when the rains set forth.
Superstitious as our forefathers were, they consulted an Oracle to find out why Subri was evacuating and to appease the gods of Subri if they had sinned against her, to forgive any transgressions on their part and come and live amongst them.
It is interesting to know and learn what the Oracle told our forefathers – that they had polluted her to the extent that she cannot breath (so George Floyd existed some hundred years ago), her children have nowhere to play having encroached her immediate neighbourhood and above all, due to the human activities around her enclave, she cannot even come out for some fresh air in the evenings – This was River Subri venting her spleen on the good people of Asante Effiduasi.
Our forefathers realised their transgressions and pleaded for mitigation and the return of Subri. Subri demanded just two items as a condition for her return: – a native pot (kukuo) of lice and a hen which had grown horns.
The significance of her request must not be lost on us – the River goddess was demanding the impossible knowing the extent of devastation caused and the unlikelihood of any redemption.
As I pen this piece, River Subri has not returned to Asante Effiduasi, our forefathers having failed to honour her request.Buildings have sprung up on her once paths and I tell you, the present generation are oblivious of the fact that a beautiful ‘SHE’ river, Subri, once transversed the landscape of Asante Effiduasi.
Such is and shall be the fate of our river bodies should the fight against galamsey fail which from all indication shall, my reason being the fact that if a whole Presidency job was once put on line and nothing, aka, hwee, happened, then surely, we are in deep trouble.
NDC ACTIONS AND INACTIONS:
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) prior to assuming the reigns of governance promised to tackle the galamsey menace head-on. They added their resolve to repeal LI 2462 which empowered the President to permit mining in forest reserves which they have woefully failed to do under various and varied guises.
Calls for state of emergency in affected and infested areas have gone unheeded for reasons one cannot fathom – what does the State stand to lose, if l may quiz?
We have just entered the seventh month of their reign and all they can do is to be dancing about the issues via resorting to all forms of tricks and excuses for not repealing the law despite calls from the citizenry who voted them into power. To put it aptly as in the words of their National Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, “kasatenten, yen fa to ponko”, to wit, “action, not words”.
The establishment of the Goldbod, plans to create the agriculture extension counterpart for the mining sector to train artisanal miners on best practices, symbolic flushing out illegal miners from forest reserves, tagging and monitoring excavators, blue river guards (whatever that means), formation of Anti illegal Mining Operation Secretariat among other initiatives are welcome news but it seems to me that the process is deliberately slow considering the existential threat galamsey poses.
l am thus tempted to believe and conclude that unless the process is expedited with pragmatic and practical moves, we shall be fetching water with a cane basket. Axiomatically, if care is not taken, before one could say jack, there would not be water bodies to protect as in the case of River Subri.
- I. 2462
I took the trouble to peruse L. I. 2462 and frankly, it beats my comprehension how our elected Members of Parliament (MPs)
could acquiesce to a law which not only defiled basic logic but also, common sense. How could they be so inhumane – what were they thinking when they passed L. I. 2462 into law considering our fragile compliance and enforcement regimes?
The word “reserve” attached to the forest alone, in my estimation, was enough to inform them but that never was – nokofio’, greed, selfishness, plain partisanship took a chunk of their brains – sad.
Unfortunately for Ghanaians, we still have quite a number of them in the current Parliament taking decisions on our behalf and arguing among themselves as to who polluted river bodies most – yah, these are our “no size” Parliamentarians.
Flowing from the above, Ghana currently is on the verge of consulting the oracles as in the case of River Subri and all hands must be on deck to avert even entering the shrine for consultation. The signs are too glaring to ignore.
I Rest my fractured peace.
Written by Osei Kwabena Esq, Etia Street, Asante Effiduase
