Rallying Ghana's traditional leaders together with the president, said if there is one right thing to be done, that thing is for all to fight galamsey, reclaim the lands and leave for posterity a "green country" and a "clean space."
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FLASHBACK: I will put my Presidency on line to stop galamsey - Nana Addo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said he will put his presidency on the line with a commitment to end the illegal small scale mining popularly called galamsey in Ghana.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
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In 2017, the President addressing a workshop on galamsey for traditional leaders said he needed to proceed cautiously since the people involved were the same people who had voted him into power, and that should he take such a decision against them, they would not vote for him in the next election.
"I have said it in the Cabinet, and perhaps this is the first time I am making this public, that I am prepared to put my Presidency on the line on this matter.
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"If by the grace of God, my party allows me to go again and I have the health and everything to go again but do not get it again, then I will say to myself: 'Well, this is a choice I have to make as a human being.' Do you do what is right or what you think will make you get along? I think you do what is right and what you are required to do," Nana Addo said.
Illegal mining has been a major challenge for successive governments over the years due to its enormous effects on lands, water bodies, and forests.
Currently, foreign nationals, especially the Chinese have taken over and using sophisticated equipment to intensify environmental degradation.
In a bid to fight the problem, the government set up the "Operations Vanguard" team made up of joint police and military officers with the oversight activities of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining.
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But after almost four years in power, the government has lost the fight against the menace.
Investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI team investigated the works of galamsey activities in the country after Nana Addo launched 'Operation Vanguard', a military-police joint task force to combat galamsey.
The investigations caught a presidential staffer and Secretary to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Cromwell Bissue in the exposé.
Bissue in the video emerged as a facilitator for a company seeking to circumvent laid down processes to be given clearance for its mining operations.
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However, the police have arrested the suspended Vice-Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Horace Ekow Ewusi over some missing excavators used for illegal mining.
This follows a letter by the Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng requesting the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to probe Ewusi over the missing excavators.
Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng earlier indicated that dozens of excavators that were seized from illegal mining have disappeared from the district assemblies where they were being kept.
The minister said, "though the excavators were seized and taken to the district assemblies, the heavy-duty machines disappeared later from the premises of the assemblies."
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It has also emerged that some big shots in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) agreed to operate galamsey to finance the party.
This comes after an audio recording surfaced online with the voice of Ekow Ewusi.
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