If Ghana were a country that voted on issues and promises, no past government of the Fourth Republic should have won a second term. After doing such a great job-fighting Galamsey as a military Head of State, Flight Lieutenant Rawlings suddenly mellowed, developing heavy feet in the eight years that he was civilian President. From Kufuor, through Ata Mills to John Mahama, the state’s fight against illegal mining plateaued but never above 10 on a scale of 1 to 100.

Our Presidents used media presence to mumble pious pontifications from the head, never from the heart, words scribbled hurriedly for them by speech writers well versed in Shakespearean English and Aristotelian logic.

Then Akufo Addo became President and Galamsey received its biggest Presidential attention ever. With fire in his eyes, the new President took the fight to the next level, declaring “war” on Galamsey mining. He spoke and the people lapped at his words. This was the President with the highest popularity rating since Rawlings became Junior Jesus.

Speaking at the presentation of colours to the Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces on May 27, 2017, Akufo-Addo tasked the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to lead the war.

It is generally agreed that nations and groups go to war if the benefits of war are deemed to outweigh the disadvantages, and also if there is a sense that there is not another mutually agreeable solution.

Two questions Akufo Addo should have asked himself in 2017 were, one: would the benefits of war outweigh all other approaches and strategies? Two: were there other agreeable solutions?  

In eight years, the answers are before our own eyes. We are hit with suicidal levels of pollution of our water bodies and contamination of farmlands, the worst in history. We face the prospect of losing our position as the world’s second-largest cocoa producer - resulting from years of drastically reduced tonnage from cocoa harvests. The cocoa trees have been exchanged for Galamsey pits.

The result is that though the price of cocoa was at an all-time high in April 2024, we have fewer tonnes for sale because the land for cultivating the crop was either inundated with unacceptably high doses of mercury and arsenic, or the farmers have sold their farms to the Galamseyers.

Yet, in Ghanaian history, cocoa farmers were once the richest people in the country. 

Eight years after the declaration of war, Ghanaians are beginning to doubt if the President meant an actual war. I am one of them. My reason is that wars are fought by soldiers, but we sent to the war soldiers who could, or were forbidden, to pull the trigger at the enemy. We might as well have sent children with catapult to fight.

Fortunately, Akufo Addo is the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces so he knows that  wars are not fought with committees sitting in Accra enjoying coffee with biscuits.

In war, armed soldiers, with instructions to shoot to kill, first drive out the illegal miners, most of them armed (I am talking about the actual enemies – the big-time financiers).

Next, the land is revegetated. The soldiers stay put, protecting the farmers till total greenery.

Am I being extremist? I don’t think so. It’s a war. The Galamseyers are killing us, without flinching. It is mass murder actually. The fact is, though we don’t see ourselves dropping dead instantly, we die slowly from the high arsenic content of the polluted lands and water bodies. And that is one level only.

The other level is the threat we face, a future where we would have to import water.

Some people will write rejoinders to this article and suggest that the “shoot-to-kill” solution is extremist and UNCONSTITUTIONAL(!) Beg your pardon. With Parliament, nothing is unconstitutional; all we need is new legislation. Besides, in war situations, Presidents, as Commanders-in-Chief, declare war before going to Parliament for affirmation. Even in America and the UK!

Stakeholder engagements? I know the intrinsic value of engagements. But what is our message to the stakeholders, in this case, the Galamseyers: sweet-talk them? Beg them? Threaten them?

All else has failed. We’ve seized shangfans and excavators, but by the last count, 500 excavators were spirited away by officials. We set up Operation Vanguard but didn’t take into account the greed factor. The soldiers were using guns bought by the state to rather protect the Galamseyers!

Don’t tell me about alternative livelihood. The Galamsey financiers are not looking for “Gye ko didi” or chicken change. Their eyes are on big money, the kind that builds mansions (not mere houses) in a matter of months. They have set their sight on the latest 4x4s with which to drive to church or mosque.

My own verdict: Galamsey has not been a war. It has been a party, an eating and drinking spree by party financiers and facelessly influential people who have operated in hypocritical shadows!

I insist: guns didn’t fail us: greed did.