Social commentator, Bernard Allotey Jacobs, has ridiculed the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa for suggesting that the government should go after those, he termed, as kingpins behind the galamsey.
Okudzeto Ablakwa is of a firm belief that the galamsey fight will not be successful until the government arrests the kingpins or overlords who are the real actors in the galamsey business.
He stated, in an interview on Peace FM’s flagship programme ”Kokrokoo” that the burning of excavators to deter illegal miners will yield no results unless “one galamsey overlord, one real architect, an actual financier is arrested and prosecuted”.
“How come not even one architect behind this galamsey operation has been arrested? To start a galamsey operation, you need millions of Ghana cedis and so the real perpetrators are not those small boys or the youth who are risking their lives.
“Instead of arresting these guys, we should make them an offer for them to lead us to the real kingpins; if we follow the chain, it will lead us to the barons. Unless we get the real perpetrators, we will always come back to square one,” he added.
But to Allotey Jacobs, Ablakwa is just running his mouth because he failed to expose the kingpins.
”It doesn’t need EOCO or CID and so forth, since he knows them, he should mention their names.”
”Who are the big men?” he asked the MP.
Allotey further requested that Hon. Ablakwa should be given a ”Police uniform to wear and go arrest big galamsey people because everything he is saying is vague”.
He strongly opined that Okudzeto Ablakwa and his likes are only taking advantage of the galamsey menace to advance their political agenda.
”I’ve seen a lot of Kwaku Ananses in the political front. When I say ‘Kwaku Ananse’, I mean because the National Women’s Organizer of NPP is being alleged that her excavators have been burned, the Kwaku Ananses are coming out to sympathize but, in reality, they’re laughing behind the scene”, he said, cautioning them to ”stop this kind of propaganda”.
To Allotey, the President and his government are doing exactly what it takes to stop the galamsey.
”We’re at a crossroad and it will take a good leader to perform that wonders making sure galamsey is stopped”, he spoke on Peace FM’s morning show ”Kokrokoo” on Wednesday, May 26.
