By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I have always measured by the abject level of intelligence and foresight of those who have been our leaders, for the most part, as well as those who would be our leaders, that the prosperity of our nation is the least bit of their worries. The fact of the matter is that, by and large, Ghanaian leaders are not very forward-looking, although listening to some of them wax eloquent and dramatic about the imperative need to expedite the process of continental African unification, you would think that they easily ranked among the vanguard membership of the most foresighted global leaders.
And so I am not the least bit either surprised or angry that Ms. Joyce Aryee, the former CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, should be vehemently calling for foreigners engaged in "Galamsey", or small-scale mining activities, to be immediately and summarily flushed out of both this cottage industry, of sorts, and the country at large (See "Chinese Galamseyers Are Destroying Ghana - Joyce Aryee" Ghanaweb.com 6/2/13).
The first question that comes to mind is as follows: Precisely when did Ms. Aryee come to a full appreciation of the fact of the destructive enormity of Galamsey activities on our national environment? For I am quite certain that the Chinese were seriously and commercially engaged in the Galamsey business even while she served as CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, and might have even vigorously promoted this business to the now-resented "foreigner" Galamseyers. And so in quite a remarkable sense, hers could hardly be said to be a serendipitous and/or an overnight discovery.
Or is it simply that as CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, the former Education Secretary under the PNDC government of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, had been rather too close to the disturbing reality of this hazard to be able to objectively recognize the same? In short, her apparently bitter complaint amuses me quite a bit; and that is to grossly understate matters.
On a side note, though, I was also a bit puzzled by the description of "Ahafo" by the reporter of the story in which Ms. Aryee's call appeared as being located in the "Brong" region. Unless s/he was mischievously apt to provoking some sort of civil strife or downright enmity between Asantes and Brongs, there was absolutely no constructive reason for such desctiption. For, needless to say, there is neither a "Brong" nor "Ahafo" region, but a "Brong-Ahafo Region." And the latter actually was officially known as "Western Asante/Ashanti" until the then-Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, the mythological unifier of Africans, split it from the Great Asante Federation into the Brong-Ahafo Region.
Anyway, while I perfectly agree with the former Mrs. Joyce Wereko-Brobbey that once they are done with raping and destroying our environment, these Chinese "Galamseyers" and their foreign competitors in the industry would return to their environmentally better preserved countries of origin, needless to say, industry leaders like Mrs. Wereko-Brobbey ought to have been savvy enough about this apocalyptic prospect before allowing the Chinese Galamseyers into the country, to begin with.
I also see a disturbing element of [ex-]post-facto xenophobia in Ms. Aryee's Galamsey flush-out call. The fact of the matter is that it was our air-headed, dough-guzzling leaders who invited these now-hated Chinese Galamseyers in the first place; which is why it would be far more appropriate for leaders like Ms. Aryee to render an unqualified apology to the nation for nihilistically collaborating with foreign miners (rapists?) and mining companies in the wanton destruction of the country before irresponsibly presuming to scapegoat Chinese Galamseyers for the deleterious effects of an activity to which these foreign scapegoats were only introduced by the leaders of their host country and their human quarry.
Ghanaian leaders have to also put on their proverbial thinking caps by realizing that they cannot go proudly and shamelessly begging for Chinese loans and grants without having to dearly pay for the same in some of the most pernicious ways.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
June 2, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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