The Director of Communications for the 2024 Bawumia Campaign Team, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, has argued the fight against illegal mining, commonly referred to in local parlance as galasmey can only be won if governments stop treating the menace with political lenses.
Miracles Aboagye emphasized that galamsey remains the most pressing issue confronting the nation. According to him, turning the battle against it into a political weapon spells doom for the country.
“Our biggest challenge in this country in the fight against galamsey is politicization. So recently, when I see all the galamsey stories, sometimes I want to laugh. I mean, I want to laugh. I wonder the NDC, because, like I told you, I am one person that when you go and check all my submissions and everything on galamsey. I always plead that we don’t play politics with galamsey,” he said.
His remarks come in response to a recent press conference held by the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah. Which he lamented the Minister presented videos allegedly implicating Akonta Mining Company Limited and Bernard Antwi Boasiako, also known as Chairman Wontumi, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), in illegal mining activities.
Miracles Aboagye criticized this move, stating that it diverted attention from the broader issue and unfairly targeted the NPP. He stressed that the fight against galamsey should unite all Ghanaians, regardless of political affiliation.
He further challenged the Minister’s impartiality by referencing a recent video allegedly showing the Dunkwa NDC Chairman and his associates confronting military personnel at a galamsey site. He argued that if the Minister is truly committed to a non-partisan fight against illegal mining, he should have included that footage as well.
“If you are fighting it and you really think that you don’t want to politicize this, then I don’t expect you to come and show only Chairman Wontumi’s videos yesterday, show the Dunkwa NDC chairman, who was seen in a video on JoyNews with his party boys strangling the military men in the galamsey site and asking them to leave. There’s also a drone shot of the same Dunkwa area where the land had been destroyed by these NDC people and the story is on JoyNews. I think Citi also carried it, show that video as well. Then some of us would have supported you and say that, well, you are fighting it,” he added.
Miracles Aboagye called for national unity and bipartisan cooperation in addressing galamsey, warning that politicizing the issue only undermines the fight and prolongs the damage to Ghana’s environment and future.
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