To: H.E. Nana Akuffo Addo
President of the Republic of Ghana

CC: Ghanaians At Large,
C/o The Media

Excellency,

OPEN LETTER ON DEALING WITH OUR ILLEGALITIES, NOTABLY ILLEGAL MINING

I write as a citizen of our dear nation Ghana, firstly, to congratulate you on your election to the high office of the President of Ghana and secondly, to commend you on your declared intention to sanitize the country of the menace of illegal mining.

Even as I write to you, I would want to share it with the rest of our countrymen since I believe each of us has a role to play in achieving the goal of ridding our country of the lawlessness associated with mining.

H.E., I would like to reiterate, as I have said to a few already, that the practice of illegal mining in only a symptom of the malaise of general lawlessness that is plaguing our nation, in practically all sectors.

Examples include driver, rider, pedestrian behaviour on our roads; springing up of shops/stores/stalls on our the pedestrian walk-ways along our roads and even unto the drains; our disposal of garbage; our noise-making; our peace officers turning a blind eye to infractions of the law, encouraging it or worse still practicing it with impunity; as well as the increasing number of instances of “taking the law into our hands”.

These are, to name, just a few. If these continue to be countenanced (an example includes a regional Minister appointed by the Chief Executive of the land daring to say he will not enforce certain laws and not being penalised for it), we cannot but expect a replication of the lawlessness in other sectors.

My view is that attempting to deal mainly with illegal mining in isolation, to the exclusion of the others, would tend to be myopic and the results will not be optimal. To nip the menace of illegal mining in the bud, the general, cross-cutting and now quite ingrained lawlessness needs to be tackled holistically.

Mr. President, I believe that three charts which I borrow from “Civics for Self-Government” by J.R. Bunting, which used to be a text book for Middle schools, aptly illustrate Ghana’s circumstances and where we could be, depending on how you lead and we, not just follow, but work with you in behalf of our country.

The two (2) key categories of people involved are the Active and Passive citizens. The Active ones are either actively good (helping to build our country) or actively bad (helping to destroy our country), while the Passive ones have given up and do not seem to care nor appreciate the consequences of our collective actions.

Believing that the input of other parties (non-citizens but “development partners”) into our development agenda would depend on and would be significantly influenced by the citizens, my letter therefore focuses on citizens and their roles.

I believe that our country, just before you took office is quite aptly represented by figure 1 below.



A number of actively good citizens got to the point of throwing in the towel, as if to say “my efforts don’t matter …, we’ll not join the bad guys, but let’s at least relax, ”. They joined or were about to join the Passive majority.

H.E., you came in on the back of your mantra “the fight is the Lord’s”; well said. You seem to promise us that we would move towards figure 2. That is, getting more citizens to become Actively good, while at the same time reducing either the Passive or the Actively bad, or both.



If we are unable to achieve this, Mr. President, I am sure you are very much aware that the figure 3 result is where we will inch towards. Certainly, not one that anyone would want to be associated with. At the same time avoiding that end-result requires hard work, as the trajectory uphill towards “The Peak of Success” in the figure depicts.

Mr. President, my humble piece of advice, if we are to avoid this figure 3 end and move towards the Peak of Success, as I set out in figure 4 would entail having the following:

Your goodself holding high the flag of Ghana, not just a political (party) colour, and seeing to it that the other initiatives get carried out in a sustained way;

Given the lack-lustre, even bad examples of the past, it will require significant political will on your part to champion this course, but the end result would very much be worth it.

Creation of opportunities for Influencers, who would (a) create awareness, sensitize, and groom Passive citizens to become more active; (b) recognize, make role models of and acclaim/award Actively good citizens; and (c) educate and even name and shame Actively bad citizens;

Civil society groupings of all sorts, community leaders and opinion leaders; relevant ‘truly’ state agencies; and also development partners and indeed, all well-intentioned members of society, need to be brought on board here.



Hopefully, this would address the escalating tendency for our being led by groupthink to ill-intended mob action rather than for positive purposes.

It is so important that none of us can afford to be passive; as the Americans say, “if you see something, say something”; we need to actively advise and warn relations, friends and/or any others and where necessary report inappropriate behaviour/actions, for correction and sanctioning if needed.

Streamlining the framework and mechanism to nurture and multiply Actively good citizens;

The commitment of competent and motivated public and civil servants is critical. This would include institutionalization of systems which promote meritocracy rather than other less desirable approaches like nepotism and

Discouraging and sanctioning all Actively bad citizens within the framework of the law;

An independent, committed, competent and motivated security service, along with a fair and efficient judiciary, would serve as a necessary foundation for this to happen.
Indeed, dealing with some very prominent/high-profile examples, if they exist, will set the tone and send a signal that wrong-doing does not pay.



Public/civil servants, at large, should be required to be the technocrats they are supposed to be rather than being politicians (unfortunately as too many senior such servants are now).

Very importantly, these being done without discrimination, in the context of equal opportunity for all, but also the expectation of clearly specified sanctions being applied irrespective of colour, tribe, creed, status, or any other such distinctions.

H.E., I note that one of the banes of our public/civil service is that too many state/government institutions operate in silos focused on their sector goals only, not willing to cooperate and collaborate with one another to achieve the country’s broader goals (the question is who decides which goals override which) and hence the competition rather that cooperation.

Mr. President, my final humble submission, therefore, would be that you strengthen the a supra-ministerial structure to coordinate the planning as well as implementation to ensure that Ministries, Departments and Agencies work together rather than in competition with one another.

I believe that within the context of this broader framework, not only the menace of illegal mining but also the other illegalities that are getting rather entrenched would be targeted by all of us and be uprooted from among us.

God bless you and may the Lord really fight for you.


Nii Ayi