The galamsey menace refuses to die, in as much as the powerful players cited in the act refuse to be truthful to themselves and Ghanaians with persistent rebuttal of Prof Frimpong Boateng’s findings that implicated these stakeholders. As for the President of the Republic, his commitment to the fight against galamsey may have gone beyond conjectural comics to an established mistrust from many Ghanaians who believed in his pre-election vows and decision to fight galamsey in all of its ramifications.
Ministers of State complicated in the act, may use all the powers at their disposal to brand the lone crusader, Prof. Frimpong Boateng a traitor, a liar, a Machiavellian and other unpleasant additive. Gabby Otchere-Darko, the President’s cousin has even threatened to sue the learned surgeon at the law court. In fact, he is gone to the court to deal with the Prof for “maligning his persona.” Many Ghanaian legal brains who support the Prof’s galamsey crusade have offered for free, their legal expertise to te distinguished Heart Surgeon when hearing of the case begins.
Other government officials like Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Information Minister, Captain Kodah, the top Security Advisor to the President, Nii Teiko Tagoe, a Presidential Staffer, Lord Commey, the Operations Commander at the presidency are likely to follow in tow with Gabby’s action. It’s maybe, a stoical show of a mere bravado to send the signal to the Ghanaian people that their hands are clean: “So, Mother Earth cannot fault us; our Saintly Rivers shall never have problems against us and none of the Natural Bodies will demand any blood from us out of the many who may have died out of the galamsey pits.”
Unfortunately, all these natural bodies refuse to rest, perhaps until the final truth is unraveled: Is Prof Frimpong Boateng lying? Who else in the saga could be holding up the truth? What is the position of the President in the unfolding melodrama? Under-cover investigations by this author have uncovered how the President was kept out of the reach of the author of the galamsey destruction report— Prof Frimpong Boateng, on many occasions he had tried to brief the President on his findings.
Or is it that the President indeed, had the report; but did not treat it as important as any other classified information? And that some reports going round suggest that the President did not know about the report, is just one of the propaganda stunts being put up by his aides to absolve him (President) of shielding people involved in the act? The other hypothetical question is “how can the President claim he was not aware of a report that had been at the presidency for more than two years?
Perhaps, the following under-ground investigations by this reporter will put the matter into proper perspective. Let go! As an elderly person with reasonability and respect towards authority, Prof Boateng first decided to meet the President to brief him about the way his own people— inner cabinet crew, were deeply involved in galamsey. Of course, in the protocol chain, Prof Frimpong Boateng needed to book his appointment with the President. The person involved will then agree with the Head of State the time to meet any such person who may not be a part of the daily routine office attendants at the Jubilee House.
In this case, even the wife of the principal cannot just rush to the office of his husband during official duties. During his preliminary attempts, this writer’s investigations showed, Prof Boateng tried on eight occasions to get through to the President to have a personal briefing with him. The purpose of the meeting, as I discovered, was to brief the President about the involvement of the stated individuals. He (Prof Frimpong Boateng) was however shielded away from His Excellency by some of the very people who are themselves kingpins in the galamsey business and are also the very Gate Keepers at the presidency.
The Heart Surgeon specialist, his close associate told this author made more than seven attempts to get the President through his (President’s) personal mobile phone, but all to no avail. “What even surprises Prof the most is that the President would not even pick his calls. He was really worried because the situation made him to conclude that the people around the President may have fed the President with lies about him,” one source disclosed.
Nonetheless, Prof Frimpong-Boateng, according to associates, kept pressing believing that he could get to the President. Now after some eight other attempts to get to the President proved futile, he decided to present his finding to the President through proxies, Chief Staff, Frema Opare and the President’s security head at the presidency, Captain Kodah. But again, Prof Boateng was not surprised that after presenting his findings to the Presidency, he could still not hear from the President, the Chief of Staff nor others, within the presidential chain whom he presented the report.
But when the issue became public, the President was said to have expressed disappointment at Prof Frimpong Boateng. In the opinion of the President, Prof Frimpong Boateng should have hinted him about his findings or waited for the Government White Paper on the report. Within the public domain however, the concern been expressed is how the President kept the two-year report without any action and that begets the argument that “Prof Frimpong Boateng should have waited for the White Paper report on the findings.” Yet there are others within the presidency who support the claim that His Excellency did not get the report and only read bits and pieces of the report in the media.
