Chiefs in Konongo in the Ashanti Region have resorted to traditional rites in a renewed effort to drive illegal miners from their community, warning that anyone who defies their directive to stop mining in local water bodies will bear the consequences.
A video circulating on social media platform X and posted by user Prince Jidulah shows the chiefs, accompanied by a fetish priest and another man carrying a crate of eggs, confronting a group of young men allegedly engaged in illegal mining at an unidentified location in the town.
Addressing the miners in Twi, one of the chiefs said traditional authorities had repeatedly warned them to stop destroying the community’s water bodies through galamsey but to no avail.
“For some time now, we have asked you to stop doing galamsey in this area because you are destroying all the water bodies here. We have informed Nana Apontuah, and he has directed us to perform rituals in these water bodies.
The rituals we are about to perform are deadly. If we finish and you continue with the galamsey and anything happens to you, you have yourself to blame,” the chief warned.
The authenticity of the video and the exact location where it was recorded could not immediately be independently verified.
The dramatic intervention comes as Ghana continues to grapple with the devastating impact of illegal mining despite years of state-led operations to eradicate the practice.
Galamsey has polluted major rivers, degraded forest reserves, destroyed thousands of hectares of farmlands and left several communities struggling with access to clean water. The illegal activity has also claimed the lives of many young miners through pit collapses and other mining-related accidents, while damage to electricity infrastructure in some mining communities has disrupted power supply.
Successive governments have launched military and security operations, confiscated mining equipment, arrested suspects and introduced policy measures aimed at protecting the country’s natural resources. However, illegal mining remains widespread in several parts of the country.
The decision by the Konongo chiefs to invoke traditional rites is being viewed as a sign of growing frustration among traditional authorities, who say conventional warnings and state enforcement have failed to stop illegal miners from operating in their communities.
The latest development highlights the increasingly active role some traditional leaders are taking in the fight against galamsey as concerns mount over its environmental and socio-economic consequences.
Source: www.kumasimail.com
