Rapper Captain Planet has indicated that contrary to assumptions that traditional leaders are to blame for illegal mining, popularly known in Ghana as galamsey, it’s rather the ordinary citizens.
He said this via his Twitter handle @CAPTAINPLANETGH today Friday, 26 August 2022.
It partially reads:
“The funny thing be say the galamsey koraa e be some of us our parents & families are those engaging.”
In an earlier tweet, the ‘Abodie’ hitmaker shared a video that captures the head of the Ashanti Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II condemning the nature crime.
He captioned the 2-minute video with the words: “This is Otumfuo condemning Galamsey & some of you people dey act like the man no dey speak against.”
It’s the video that captured the Ashanti king addressing the audience at the maiden event of the ‘Regional Consultative Dialogue on Small Scale Mining in the Ashanti Region on Wednesday, 12 May, 2022.
Here, he’d famously said, he’d told the Ashanti regional minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, and the lands and resources minister, Samuel Jinapor, “my son,” that “truth be told, as we talk about galamsey, about 30% of the people gathered right here in this place know all those involved in galamsey.”
“On my part, I have already warned my Chiefs and elders against participation in such illegalities, and I will not hesitate to strongly sanction any such infraction,” he’d added.
The other half of Captain Planet’s tweet, quoted above, appears to argue that were the [Ashanti] kingdom and its king to swoop down on galamsey operators, they’d be met with resistance and accused of tampering with people’s much needed source of income.
“If the kingdom goes to attack them right now to stop people will come & say the king is taking food off their tables. Hypocrisy level for here be too high.”
The member of the Ghanaian musical trio, 4×4, was making these comments following recent controversial comments made on Kumasi-based Oyerepa FM, by the leader of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Akwasi Addai ‘Odike’, who is accused by the Kumasi Traditional Council of denigrating the king of the Ashanti kingdom and insinuating the king is complicit in the nature crime, galamsey, by his inactivity to deal with those who are engaged in it under his watch.
In another tweet earlier today, Captain Planet (CP), cited a screenshot of Odike behind a microphone at the Oyerepa FM studios with the caption:
“He sought to wage a rebellion against Otumfuo and the entire Ashanti Kingdom. Yes, u have freedom to talk about galamsey which everybody is against it but his speech seems like a threat and that’s what got him into trouble.”
Source: classfmonline.com