The Provost of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at KNUST, Professor Charles Ofosu Marfo has called for a strict approach in the fight against illegal mining known in local parlance as ‘galamsey’.
According to him, killing perpetrators of galamsey is not an offence.
Speaking on Burning Issues on Adom FM, Prof Marfo explained that, illegal miners are ‘nation wreckers’ and killing them is as same as self-defence.
He stated that water bodies, air, and forests play an important role in human life and that anyone who interferes with them endangers human survival.
“There is nothing wrong in killing nation wreckers like illegal miners, it’s the same as self-defence and it’s just like you being in your house and someone comes to attack you and then you kill him, it’s self-defence”.
“Look we say water is life, not only the water bodies but the air we breathe do you know that heavy metals are now found in all the vegetables we are consuming which are dangerous to our health so if you kill these people, what is wrong with that”.
Prof. Marfo noted that, illicit miners are tenacious and will go to any length to obtain gold.
To fight galamsey, he said they should not be handled with children’s gloves.
He referred to how countries like China protect their water bodies, unlike Ghana.
“The keen interest of the galamseyers is gold and you might get killed if you try to stop them, after arresting such a person, do you read the bible to them? Look they shouldn’t be pampered.
“A country like China is protecting its water bodies and complying with all the rules there, do you think if they were pampered, would they be law-abiding?” Prof Marfo quizzed”.
Source: Ayisha Akua Ibrahim
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