Tragic moments often leave no room for chuckles; yet Ghana’s Black Wednesday leaves room to recall past experiences riding on the giant bird called the airplane.
Even worse was the smaller species called helicopter with a propellor atop. My worst was the small Allegheny commuter plane that carried only 20 passengers.
On this, your heart beat started on realizing you were in a plane whose pilot was visible to all passengers. Planes were safer where the pilot was unseen.
The prospect of your navigator dozing, or yawning was itself a nightmare. While a crash was unthinkable, the very sight of a pilot on duty required life insurance.
Black Wednesday, it was called. Shock, pain, trauma and the color black draped the nation. Another national tragedy had struck; a helicopter crash in Ashanti shattering families, relations, and spawning a new round of widows, orphans, and one newly wedded wife.
Among the wailing was an 80-year old woman who just recovered from stroke: she cried uncontrollably having lost an only child. Anguish deepened when husbands and daddies who left for work that morning, returned wrapped beyond recognition, their bodies pulverized.
Television media houses flopped, repeating horror scenes from a helicopter crash, that had killed eight birds with one stone. Cabinet ministers, state officials and a plane crew on a mission to launch responsible mining.
But there was another plane incident that received scant media spotlight. The location was a small town near Ajumako, Central region same Wednesday. A helicopter 9G-ADW with four passengers on board, made an emergency landing at Kokoben Presbyterian School.
In the words of an eyewitness: ‘We saw it swerve at low altitudes over the forest; it then landed on the school field. Scores and scores of youth ran to the site out of curiosity.
When asked what was happening, the pilot said he was going to Obuasi and made an emergency landing here due to bad weather. We later saw it take off again to resume the flight. We layer found out it was different from the plane that crashed.’
While most parts of Ghana were wrapped in grief and tears, and three days of mourning had been declared; others were curiously delighted seeing in the somber faces a ray of victory over illegal mining. The disaster was simply an act of resistance against ‘Galamsey,’ said a woman on social media.
The river deities at Sikakrom, the disaster site, had fiercely fought back to protect their land. To her, the plane was full of Galamsey executives who were there to survey the area and hand it over to Chinese to poison rivers and destroy cocoa farms.
The accident, to her, marked the successful arrest of Galamsey Lords. ‘Thanks to river deities, the power of Adansi is at work…You people left your towns and came to destroy our forests and water bodies, and this is your end.
We thank you deities surrounding Adansi…we would have been damned if the helicopter had been spared. You would have handed us over to China for your prosperity.’
If that woman had shed tears, it would have been tears from a crocodile, which abounds in faraway Paga.
The message of top Government officials having lost their lives on a mission to save the environment, was completely lost on others. At best this was a routine act of hypocrisy.
The lack of political will to ground illegal mining was indeed not one party’s burden. None of the two major political parties appeared sufficiently committed to fight Galamsey and restore healthy living. For the NPP, the biggest self-betrayal was the brazen indifference to a Frimpong Boateng Report, which pointed to high government officials involved in Galamsey.
The eventual outcome was an anti-climax. The whistle blower himself ended up arraigned before a Special Prosecutor to answer allegations of corruption. As my Ga friends would say, ‘kegbashi nmene!’
Let’s not forget another crusader from the opposite camp, the NDC. Dr Hanna Bissiw-Kotei, newly appointed Administrator of Minerals Development Fund. I doffed my hat seeing her bold initiatives at forest sites and zones, confronting kingpins, Chinese and local alike.
In forestry costume, she fearlessly led the security to ransack Galamsey hideouts, getting many arrested, putting her own life at risk.
But her efforts were short-lived. Not only did many seized excavators, disappear overnight; ‘Abaawa’ Hanna as we say at Methodist Church, was politely advised to limit herself to administrative duties. In other words, ‘Hanna, tashie,’ as my colleague Gas would say.
For all you know, it is Galamsey that feeds political party campaigns and drive election victories and several social events.
At church harvest events, did the Harvest Chairman not receive the loudest applause when he donated 100k in Jesus’ name? ‘And what do you tell the generous Chairman?’ Pastor would ask; the congregation responds: ‘Chairman, Onyame nhyira wo-o-o-o-oooo!’ invoking God’s blessings over illegal mining.
We have collectively conspired against future generations, pre-poisoning their water sources and leaving a legacy of malformed babies.
In the name of our fallen heroes, Omane Boamah, Murtala, indeed the Departed 8, let’s hold hands and fight illegal mining as an inter-party project. That’s the only way to dry our tears.
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