Features
The golden experience
When gold and diamonds were first discovered in South Africa, many men lost interest in sex. The discovery, therefore, caused marital problems the world over. Wives thought their dear husbands had gotten impotent and perhaps needed herbal treatment – AK 47 bitters. In fact, they were mistaken. Their husbands were only preoccupied with dreaming about gold and just couldn’t get it up to fulfill their marital obligations.
When the gold and diamond sensation got blown out of proportion, happily-married men either divorced their wives or simply left them and headed for South Africa to “do galamsey.” It was also a boom for some wives.
Hot-headed, sexy, firm buttocks, slim waisted, shinny-lipped wives left their husbands gaping in wonder as they floated to the Rand to hawk their beautiful bodies for gold money. Some became strip-teasers and belly dancers to entertain tired gold diggers and made a fortune therefrom. Gold had brought a good measure of madness to the world
The global insanity became so infectious that gainfully employed folks vacated post and were last seen in dirty garb with shovels and pans digging gold. Some pastors and catechists were even infected with the virus of the golden madness.
They promptly told the Holy Spirit to hold on “small”. They threw off the cassock, shoved the Holy Bible aside and travelled thousands of miles to dig diamonds. Man shall not subsist only on the word of God. Moreover, when man is bellyful his chances of making it to heaven are high. The reason is that the distance between a man’s stomach and the gates of heaven is automatically reduced once his belly is well-filled with good food and wine.
The gold rush also brought ready employment to armed robbers. They quickly procured arms and ammo and danced joyfully to the land of the Afrikaners, not to dig for gold, but to rob successful miners of their fortune. It brought about violence and a security problem. The miners were compelled to arm themselves and people died through violence while others were maimed.
The situation was characterised by mayhem and some returned home wealthy, others poorer than they had been. It was a whole confusion of comedy and tragedy, successes and failures, joy and sorrow. That is what gold begets.
Go to Obuasi and witness what gold can do to a human being. Illegal gold diggers are prepared to die in defence of their notoriety and determination to prosper from minerals that do not belong to them. They are armed to the teeth and would readily cause harm if antagonised.
Some have died while digging for gold or through mercury or cyanide poisoning. When workers of Ashanti Goldfields blast surface rock and wait for the dust to settle, these galamsey men rush in there to scoop out earth which they are not supposed to be doing because of the health risks and because it is unlawful.
Galamsey operators have clashed with police and security men of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation (AGC) more than once this year alone. In a recent offense, the operators were alleged to have destroyed AGC property, torched housing facilities, and stole 58,000 birds from the corporation’s poultry unit, among other things.
Surely, the rogues are selling some of the birds cheaply under half the price, and the rest are certainly being organised into light soup to clear malaria. Of course, some of the meat would end up roasted, fried or toasted and eaten with ground pepper and akpeteshie if not Extra ‘Hewale.’
This is the comedy of the palaver. The looming tragedy is that the galamsey men are said to be getting ready to avenge the death of three of their colleagues who were killed in the confrontation. Apparently, they are not content with the chicken festival and want to cause havoc.
The problem with those who mine gold is that they are die-hards – Yente gyae! Most of them have seen the bitterness of life, have suffered hunger, disease and deprivation. They find galamsey as the golden way out. It is their saviour, their messiah. If they would meet death in the course of finding a means to survive, they would welcome it. And if they could be killed, then they must also kill. That sums up the mentality of these operators.
I have a feeling that it would be better for the authorities to deal prudently with the matter while beefing up security in the area. In the first place, to deprive them completely of their operations without offering them any alternatives would mean turning them loose to become armed robbers since they are armed, anyway. We have enough armed robbers in the system. We don’t want new entrants.
What should be done is that their activities should be regulated rather than obliterated. A way should be found to meet their representatives to iron out the growing differences. And the following must be considered.
That they cannot operate without licence; they should be confined to specific areas of operation so as to save the environment from degradation; should renounce violence and the celebration of chicken festivals; should regulate the activities of their members; should not encroach upon AGC property and desist from lawlessness of all kinds, especially stealing and be prepared to be tried and jailed if they breach the peace or the law.
The aim is not to encourage galamsey but to regulate it so that it becomes legal and employment generating without it become a nuisance to society.
As one AGC official told me recently, the activities of the galamsey operators do not adversely affect the corporation except when the operators become lawless, encroach and steal. That is where they become undesirable.
It is unfortunate that AGC does not arm their security men well enough to deal with lawless operators. Anyhow, we hope the situation would be well-thought-out so that calm can return to the Obuasi area.
Already, the prostitutes in the area are feeling uneasy. When there is a stir, business goes down. Theirs is a matter of the heart and of the thigh. That’s a cool matter and they are praying hard that the matter should be resolved at a high level. Because the higher you go, the cooler it becomes!
THE typical itinerant salesman in Sikaman is a herbalist. He is normally a slim macho with the capacity to perambulate the expanse of area covering the triangle of Accra-Tema-Ashiaman. In short, he can walk a total of 60 miles a day, marketing a product that cures every disease, including poverty. 
The door-to-door herbal pharmacist advertises his product by word of mouth. He has nothing to do with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). After all, his concoctions do not feature on FM stations.
Those herbalists who cannot walk to propagate the herbal gospel, liaise with drivers of mass transportation and their mates. They are, therefore, given the chance to sell their products on Benz buses that ply the routes.
Normally, the herbalist starts his sales message with a prayer and Bible study. He asks the passengers to bow down their heads in supplication to God the father, the son, the Holy Spirit.
When a herbalist asks the passengers to close their eyes and bow their heads, Moslems on board naturally feel offended. They feel that the herbalist has no right to assume that every passenger is a Christian. They think such an assumption is an affront to Islam.
So a Moslem on board will raise the hand for a point of order. He’ll remind the herbalist that it would be in his own interest to mind his language.
“Be careful the way you address people in a public place. Not every person here is a Christian,” he’d state assertively.
Of course, the herbalist will promptly ignore him, but would all the same “watch” his tongue. Who knows whether or not the Moslem brother is inspired by Quoranic zeal to defend the tenets of Islam to the hilt?
When he starts saying, “Wallahi!” and “Inshallah!” it could be the beginning of proclaiming Islam as supreme, a point which must be driven home with talibanic precision.
So the herbalist must tread carefully lest he steps on fire.
The herbalist could even add a measure of mirth to it all, by announcing that Christians on board today have very interesting company on the journey, but that should not detract from the business of the day.
The Moslem brother will weigh the words carefully and offer a wry smile.
He must be careful the occasion does not degenerate into the use of semantics and proverbial oration to deride his conviction that public utterances must be mindful of religious sensibilities. He has made his point very clear and expects that it is taken in good faith in the interest of a peaceful journey.
The herbalist will now open the New Testament and preach salvation, stating clearly that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ and NOBODY else.
The Moslem brother will now start twitching his moustache. The visible and almost revolutionary reflexes of his upper lip can be an indication that sentiments have begun superseding reason, and the outcome could well be tragic now shift uneasily in his seat.
The time has come for him to also express his right to the religion of his fore-bears. He’ll put his hand into his pocket and rise to his feet. The time has indeed come!
This article was first published on Saturday, September 9, 2006
When the cause of a particular problem like sickness, disease, sudden illness, a social issue etc. are not known, it stands to reason that resolving it becomes a huge challenge.
Citizens would understand the government when public announcements are made to the effect that government is trying to find a solution to the issue, even though it is taking a while for it to be resolved because citizens are rational beings.
On the other hand, if the solution to a particular issue is known to everybody but the government for whatever reason, is dragging its feet in resolving it, citizens become frustrated and begin to lose trust in their leaders.
One such issue is the heavy traffic along a section of the Kasoa – Odokor road. A short stretch of bad road between the traffic light at the Weija Government Hospital and the entrance to the entrance of the overhead that leads to the N1, is the cause of the problem but nothing is being done about it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Thus is clearly unacceptable.
Another issue that requires urgent attention is the lack of pavements along a lot of streets in parts of the various Municipal Assemblies. Exercise is a prerequisite for long life and healthy living and for those of us who it has become a way of life, this issue of people putting up structures right to the edge of the drains beside the roads, are making life difficult for us.
We are compelled to walk along the roads, putting our lives at serious risk. Pedestrians should never be compelled to compete with vehicles on our streets and roads. Roads and streets are made for vehicles and pavements are made for pedestrians. That is the norm. Any attempt to normalise a situation where pedestrians are mingling with vehicles is insanity.
It is the road regulations that makes it so and therefore district or municipal assemblies are to take responsibility and ensure that spaces for pavements are not encroached upon. Citizens have rights that must be protected by their leaders and making pavements available to pedestrians, is one of them.
When we hear of teachers having sex with students, it appears it is something recent. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since Adam. Perhaps this issue is getting much attention due to the proliferation of social media. It was an open secret in times past when Teachers were in relationships with female students and some married them immediately after completion of school.
Some teachers were also known to be having unholy interactions with female pupils but due to the times that these acts occurred, human rights issues and the awareness around it, allowed such unscrupulous teachers to get away with their crimes.
Now we are in a different era and so a Headmaster is now in hot waters. He is alleged to have raped about 19 female students and as usual, some officials tried to cover it up and are also in hot waters and their actions or inactions in the matter are under investigation.
Why the man has been allowed to roam freely without being arrested is simply mind boggling. It appears that the law applies differently, depending on who you are. This issue came to public attention sometime in August this year, yet the police had not arrested or invited this man for question regarding the rape allegation.
It has come out that he is a Constituency Secretary of the ruling party and the question in the public domain is that, is it because he is a political figure that is why he is still walking around without questioning? I believe in the rule of law so let us hold our breadth and let the proper thing be done.
The police must however be seen to be active in this matter. God bless.
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