-Moses Yao Agbemasor writes
When President John Mahama declared that “whether legal or illegal, it is our land that is being destroyed and the money comes to the state not to private individuals,” he did more than misspeak. He revealed a dangerous mindset that places government revenue above environmental survival, and in doing so, he undermined the very campaign that helped him rise to the presidency.
Mahama built part of his political credibility on strong rhetoric against galamsey. He promised to protect Ghana’s rivers, forests, and farmland from ruin. Yet as President, he casually reduced the issue to whether the proceeds went into state coffers or private pockets. That is not leadership. That is hypocrisy.
Galamsey is not about accounting. It is about poisoned water bodies, scarred landscapes, collapsing farmlands, and destroyed livelihoods. It is about communities condemned to poverty and sickness because leaders chose short term money over long term survival. For a man who campaigned against galamsey to later justify it on revenue grounds is a betrayal of trust and a clear failure of consistency.
The truth is simple. You cannot campaign on protecting the land and then, in office, defend its destruction. You cannot tell Ghanaians their future matters, then excuse its erosion for money. That contradiction is why illegal mining persists because those in power send mixed signals, enabling destruction while pretending to oppose it.
History will judge leaders not by how much money they claim the state earned, but by whether they stood firm when Ghana’s rivers were being poisoned and its lands laid bare. On galamsey, Mahama’s words show he stood on the wrong side of that judgment
