The Silent Price of Galamsey

Nine of the king’s guards marched into the compound square bare-chested, each with a leaf in his mouth. Their faces looked as if there were blood on them. The children who had gathered, enjoying the presence of the moonlight as they did every time after the sun went to sleep and the moon came to fight against the darkness with its light, rushed to seek shelter in the arms of their parents, for they had been taught from the cradle that the frog does not jump in the daytime without reason.

Babu Krom was known for its beauty—its green forests, pure rivers, and rich wildlife. They even believed that some of their trees and fruits existed in heaven, where the father of their gods dwelled. By custom, those nine guards of the king only appeared during moonlight when something ominous had occurred.

It had come to the king's notice that Kweikwei and Karikari, two teenagers, had broken a sacred taboo. They had gone fishing in the Tami River — a river said to belong to the high god of the village. When the guards arrived at their home, all eyes were closed, and the children were delivered to them, as any resistance would be met squarely. They were brought to the king’s palace; the judgment was swift — death. Their throats were to be slit, and their blood spilled over the thousand shrines as offerings to the gods of Babu Krom.

The announcement of their fate sent shockwaves through the village. Nuumo Adjei, a man full of wisdom in the village, stood before the king, visibly disturbed. “Is it the gods who ask for their heads, or is it your own doing?” he asked in a steady voice, because he holds an opinion that the king is unwise. “I’ve known our gods not just today, and I can say that our gods don’t eat children’s heads.” He glanced around, annoyed, and said to the king without fear, “A man who uses force is afraid of reasoning.”

King Agbaafia, however, remained unmoved. If Nuumo Adjei were not blind, he would have taught him a lesson. The people watched in silence, coming to understand that “A king that does not protect his people is like a bird that abandons its nest.” Even in those dark moments, the parents of the culprits knelt down, crying toward the sky, pleading with King Agbaafia, “Our king, the past cannot be changed, but the future is in your hands. So pardon our children.” The king leaned back on his throne, his eyes cold, and said in a commanding voice, “A king who does not punish crime invites it.”

The oldest woman in the village, Ankpa Djama, bent with age but sharp of mind, stepped forward. She had lived long enough to see the patterns of life and fate. “These boys only went fishing because their mother was pregnant and weak, and their siblings were starving,” she said softly. But her words fell on deaf ears. King Agbaafia was resolute, and the boys were sentenced to die.

This forced her to whisper a saying of old: ‘A feather may float away, but the weight of the stone remains,’ as the boys were being led away to face their end. Their sacrifice, she knew, would leave a lasting scar on the village.

Ninety-one days later, Owula Kofi returned to Babu Krom from the city, a place where traditions had been discarded like old clothes. There, children no longer respected their elders — if they greeted them two days ago, they expected the elders to be those to greet them first the next day. He had left Babu Krom for the city in search of a white-collar job, but it had been years, and he still hadn’t gotten one. Frustration had set in, and he had become a ‘goro’ man in the city, mostly engaged in dubious schemes. That was the only way he loved to utilize the certificate he had acquired from the university.

His return marked the arrival of something new in Babu Krom. Because in the village of the blind, the one-eyed man is a hero, he received praise as the first son of the land to have gone to university, though unemployed and slowly becoming a good-for-nothing man.

But interestingly, he wasn’t alone in his return. With him came ten pale-skinned white men and five city folks. The last time Babu Krom had seen white men was centuries ago when they had come to enslave the people. But the villagers had driven them away with stones. These white men, however, came bearing gifts—dowries, guns with no bullets, cameras, and money — all promises for schools, clinics, and other amenities. They went to every home, giving them life, as they presented kola nuts to the old folks.

King Agbaafia, who had ascended to the throne under dubious circumstances, welcomed them with open arms. It was whispered that the late King Anang, unable to produce a male heir, had fathered the current king with his own sister. Some elders, after the installation, used to abuse the adage that “He who is destined for power does not have to fight for it,” in a way to insult the king intelligently. It was the same reason Ankpa Djama distanced herself from the palace, under the notion that “It is better to be a lion in the village than a servant in the king’s court.” Many believed that the king himself was an abomination, and his insecurities about his rule drove him to harsh and inhumane decisions, which led to the end of Karikari and Kweikwei.

Soon, helicopters began flying in and out of the village, stirring excitement. The children gathered to wave at the choppers, their dreams taking flight with each spin of the blades. The elders, too, gathered around the white men, eager to touch their skin, take photos, and bask in their foreign aura. Alcoholism and notoriety became widespread like bushfire. Many young girls soon became pregnant, leading to a competition to see whose baby resembled the white men the most. The kente weaver, unable to bear this new madness from the young girls, concluded, “When the elephant crosses the river, the small animals get wet. The influx of the white men has been more of a curse than a blessing.”

Only Ankpa Djama spoke against this sudden change. She warned, “No one knows what the white men and Owula Kofi are doing in the thick forest. We need to send someone to watch them.” But the king, not wanting to risk a fourth batch of foreign schnapps, money, kola nuts, and another night with one of the white women, dismissed her concerns, assuring the people that the white men loved nature and were merely researching herbal medicine. “The one who walks alone cannot be heard,” Ankpa Djama always muttered, knowing her foresight would be ignored.

It wasn’t long before the annual festival arrived. The villagers, fetish priests, shrine goddesses, and King Agbaafia ventured into the thick forest to perform the cleansing ritual, singing songs of old. But as they got closer to the forest, they noticed something unusual: the big white dogs that always led them during the cleansing ritual were nowhere to be seen — a sign the gods used to show themselves when it was time. The birds in the forest were also absent. No fruits fell from the trees as they approached, and no other animals were in sight. Everyone sensed there was a problem, but they brushed it off. They were met with untold devastation. Their once-majestic forest was gone, the wildlife exterminated, replaced by a gaping hole. The Tami River had turned thick and brown, its sacred waters polluted. The white men were nowhere to be found — not even Owula Kofi and the city folks. It had taken only three months of illegal mining to bring this destruction to the beautiful land of Babu Krom.

The king and his subjects returned home, heavy-hearted with bitterness. As he sat down, thinking about how they would carry on with the ritual, news of his wife’s delivery of a boy with five limbs was brought to him in a calabash. He shouted in surprise and rushed into the thick forest like mad men chasing their own shadows and sat by the Tami River. Alone by the river, the king queried the high god of the Tami River, “When the people were mining the sacred gold from you and destroying our forest, why didn’t you strike them? You asked me to strike down the young boys who took fish from your waters,” forgetting that he had done that following his whims and caprices, “but you didn’t strike the white men. Is it because of their color or because Owula Kofi brought them?” He looked up at the heavens after no response, and realized that “When the cooking pot remains empty, even the stars turn a blind eye.”

No one ever saw or heard of King Agbaafia again. Whether he vanished or took his own life, no one could say. What remained, however, was a village in ruin. The forests were gone, the sweet rivers tainted, and the people left broken by the cunning of the white men, following the foolishness of King Agbaafia and the cleverness of Owula Kofi. In the end, the gods had remained silent, and the people of Babu Krom paid the price for leaving their future in the hands of the illegitimate king to decide.

As Ankpa Djama watched the village, she could recollect how their ancestors had protected their lands through various wars, fighting against the white men who came centuries ago and did not yield to their persuasions. However, the once-vibrant forest now lay in waste. She remarked, “It’s indeed true that our people say when the fish starts to rot, the head is the first to go.”

Author: Abdul Rahman Odoi

Email: Rahmanislam5000@gmail.com

Designation: Socio-political commentator