I speak today as a deeply concerned son of Ahafo — a region once rich in cocoa, culture, and community. Today, that identity is under siege. Illegal mining, or galamsey, has taken an aggressive hold over Ahafo, transforming fertile farmland into poisoned wastelands, while those mandated to protect the people remain disturbingly silent.
From Cocoa to Crisis
For decades, Ahafo has proudly contributed to Ghana’s cocoa industry. But the rapid spread of galamsey is endangering that legacy. Rivers are polluted. Forests are stripped. Cocoa farms are vanishing. And the youth, lured by quick profits, are abandoning the land for illegal mining pits.
Worse still, media houses are quiet. Security agencies are inactive. And local leadership is absent.
Who Is Benefiting From This Destruction?
These aren’t isolated incidents — they are coordinated and well-financed operations. Which raises an uncomfortable but urgent question:
Are some of those who financed the NDC’s 2024 election campaign now engaging in or profiting from galamsey in Ahafo to recover their investments?
I raise this not to point fingers, but to demand transparency. Ghana deserves to know whether national leadership is compromised by obligations to private interests over public good. If powerful financiers are now quietly being paid back through environmental destruction and exploitation, the nation is in danger.
A Deafening Silence from Duty-Bearers
Why are security forces not intervening? Why is the Environmental Protection Agency not raising the alarm? Why is the media — once the Fourth Estate of our democracy — so reluctant to investigate and expose what’s happening in Ahafo?
Their silence is not neutral. It is complicity.
A Call to National Conscience
I call upon:
• The President of the Republic to initiate an impartial investigation into illegal mining activities in Ahafo and elsewhere.
• The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources to explain the failure to protect Ghana’s agricultural regions.
• Independent media and civil society to rise beyond fear or political bias and give voice to the voiceless.
• Parliament, to hold public hearings on illegal mining and its political-financial networks.
I refuse to accept that Ahafo’s future will be exchanged for short-term political returns. We must not allow greed and silence to strip away our land, our dignity, and our children’s future.
Let this be on record: I will not be silent. I choose to stand for the land that raised me — and I call on every well-meaning Ghanaian to do the same.
