Various attempts had been made in the past by the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government under the leadership of former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to stop or minimise the devastation of illegal small scale and alluvial mining (galamsey) on the countries water bodies, fertile and arable lands, and virgin forests but all to no avail.

The NPP's government's robust attempts and efforts to stop galamsey activities in Ghana were openly shamelessly sabotaged by then former president John Dramani Mahama and his brigade of NDC sycophants and bootlickers.

While President Akufo-Addo was trying his hardest to save the mentioned natural resources from destruction, the NDC and their leader were promising those actively engaged in galamsey their support and resources if they voted them to power.

President Akufo-Addo was undermined by the NDC every inch of the way in his resolutely determined fight against galamsey. No wonder that he catastrophically failed, making mockery of all the efforts and resources invested in conducting that fight.

However, nearing election 2024, then former president John Dramani Mahama and NDC were able to mobilise some University lecturers, students, and other categories of people to embark on public demonstrations using the failure to decapitate galamsey by President Akufo-Addo as a weapon against him and NPP. Nevertheless, they were the very people that sabotaged the president, rendering all his efforts made to fight galamsey futile. What a bunch of hypocrites that crave for political power, fame, and wealth at all costs.

For declaring support and promising resources for galamsey operatives, how could President John Mahama and his NDC government successfully fight the canker now that they are in power? All his attempts so far made to fight galamsey are superficial, a scratch on the surface of course, while underneath the problem is potential for deadly diseases and death.

Now that our politicians have proven themselves incapable of uprooting galamsey activities from Ghana when our water bodies, fertile and arable lands and forest continue to suffer under the hands of some selfish and greedy Ghanaians and their foreign accomplices, the only option or hope left is the intervention of a military regime.

As soldiers rule by decrees hence are most feared, many a discerning Ghanaian believes that they can effectively root out the destructive galamsey activities from Ghana, if and only if, they will be as selfless and dedicated to the people and the country similarly as Captain Ibrahim Traore is to his people and country Burkina Faso.

If Ghanaians want to save their motherland Ghana from destruction, they had better make hard and realistic choices.

The current Ghanaian practice of democracy that has turned some politicians into criminals and supporters of evildoers and professional insulters is never a panacea for stopping galamsey or developing the nation. A more radical type of government is needed, if Ghana was to survive the devastations it has been subjected to under the hands of our polarised partisan politicians and their supporters.

We cannot continue to sit on the fence with our arms folded around the chest while some shameless politicians with their myopic greedy supporters steadily ride the nation into the dark abyss of doom. What do you think?

Let us hold a proper and honest conversation on the galamsey issue to arrive at an effective solution; the candid opinion of the writer, the son of Kumawu/Asiampa soil.