Opinion: Ghanaians Caught with Illegal Foreign Miners and Traders Must Be Given Stiffer Sentences by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jnr., Ph.D.

Reports that some four Indian businessmen and two Ghanaians were arrested by agents from the National Security Secretariat last Thursday, August 8, ought to come as good news, if also because it reduces the population of criminal predators laying our otherwise healthy environment to waste by six, which, depending on the predatory resources of these criminal suspects, could very well put a considerable dent in the ecologically destructive power of these nation-wreckers (See “Kumasi: Six Businessmen Were Arrested Over Alleged Illegal Gold Deal – Oppong-Nkrumah” Modernghana.com 8/10/19).

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Now, it is not clear to me whether the alleged involvement of the suspects in the “illegal gold trade” has anything to do with the Galamsey Industry or trading in mineral gold in the country itself. Chances are that the allegedly illegal activities of the six criminal suspects arrested may have something to do with both the Galamsey Industry and the illegal trade in gold.  Whatever the real case may be, the two Ghanaian citizens alleged to have been involved with the four illegal gold-trading Indian businessmen must be given the harshest form of punishment on the books, should they be eventually found to be culpable of the crimes for which they presently stand accused.

We also presently do not know the real citizenship status of the four Indian businessmen. If any of them happens to have acquired Ghanaian citizenship, then the courts may also seriously consider stripping them of the same and promptly deporting them from the country. But, of course, this should only be after they have served whatever prison sentences they may be deemed to deserve. Those who are not Ghanaian citizens among the four Indian businessmen, should have whatever residential status they may have acquired in the country promptly revoked and swiftly and summarily deported, after all the necessary punitive measures have been duly and fairly exacted. In short, it is long overdue for our law-enforcement agencies and authorities to make life ungovernable for any foreign residents in our country who may be intent on making life unpleasant and unlivable for bona fide Ghanaian citizens.

The same should go for Ghanaian politicians, as has been revealed by our hardworking national security agents in recent weeks, who conspire with either foreign nationals or other internal political saboteurs to seditiously engage in such national security destabilizing activities as kidnappings and the targeted assassinations of their political opponents, both within their own political parties and political parties which they deem to be opposed to their political aspirations and ambitions. I have even proposed the possible reintroduction of the death penalty in the most extremely felonious instances. Our politicians and law-enforcement agents and agencies should also work hard around the clock to make residency in Ghana extremely ungovernable for foreign nationals engaged in criminal activities ranging from armed robbery, rape, murder, cyber-crimes of all forms and shades.

For the foregoing reasons and others that might have escaped the attention of this writer, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) needs to be adequately resourced in order to be able to undertake massive citizenship educational campaigns across the country. Our first priority as Ghanaian citizens ought to be the protection and upgrade of the quality of life of all legally resident citizens and inhabitants of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana; and then the protection and defense of the human rights of all citizens of the ECOWAS region and continental Africa at large. We also need to prioritize our collective national self-love, and then we may be able to rationally and legitimately talk about our Pan-African organicity.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com  Ghanaffairs

The views expressed by this author remain solely their own and are not to be taken as the view of the Editorial Board of www.africanewsanalysis.com