The abundant gold in Talensi, a deprived district in Ghana’s Upper East Region, has brought two things to Gban (also spelt Gbane): money for crafty outsiders, and graves for defenceless locals.
In the middle stands a traditional ruler — wealthy, bossy, politically connected and lawsuit-happy. Loud when the Chinese mine needs defending. Silent when his own people are pulled dead from the pits.
The voice for the large mine
Long before the mining deaths and disabilities made headlines, the Chief of Tongo (Tongraan) Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang, also known as the Paramount Chief of Talensi, made his preference clear.
Small-scale mining, he argued publicly, would not help Talensi. He said what Talensi needed was large-scale investors, citing Obuasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, where big companies drill deep and leave trees standing.
That philosophy later became the political canopy Chinese-owned Shaanxi Mining Ghana Ltd — now Earl International Group Ghana Gold Ltd — needed to entrench itself in Gban.
The man who changed
The Tongraan was not always loud for the Chinese interest.
When he was Honourable Robert Nachinab Doameng Mosore — Member of Parliament (MP) for Talensi — he was loud for the opposite side.
He stood with the local small-scale miners. He defended their right to dig their ancestral land.
Then he became Tongraan. And the man who defended small-scale miners in Parliament turned against the same miners on the royal skin (the throne).
The same young men he once defended became “illegal miners” in his narrative. What changed? Not the gold. Not the land. Only the skin.
While he was in Parliament, he saw the small-scale miners as voters to be defended. On the throne, he now sees the same small-scale miners as obstacles to be cleared for a large-scale investor— Shaanxi/Earl.
The chief who wrote against police protection for a Ghanaian
If the contradiction was just about words, it could be forgiven as politics. But it became action — and that action was against his own people.
Nanlamtaaba Enterprise is a licensed Ghanaian small-scale mining company owned by a Talensi indigene, Zongdan Boyak Kolog, nicknamed Polo.
When it faced repeated incursions and trespass by the Chinese mine, it applied to a High Court in Bolgatanga, capital of Ghana’s Upper East Region, for “police protection and assistance” to secure its lawful concession.
The High Court, after assessing documents that proved Polo acquired the concession legally, granted the application.
It was at this point that the Paramount Chief stepped in. Not to support the Ghanaian company from his own traditional area. He wrote a letter to the Inspector-General of Police, Christian Tetteh Yohuno, opposing the police protection granted to Nanlamtaaba Enterprise.
Let that sink in: A Ghanaian traditional ruler wrote to the head of Ghana’s police to oppose police protection for a Ghanaian company that holds a valid licence on his own land, against a Chinese company that is already a co-defendant with the Minerals Commission in court over that same land.
This is no longer silence. This is active opposition.
The name on the tape
In 2018, Edward Adeti exposed Shaanxi officials meeting High Court Judge, Jacob Boon, who had a case involving Shaanxi before him.
The company offered Adeti a motorbike and Gh¢5,000 to kill the story. He reported it to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).
Then came the leaked audio. Former Minister of State, Rockson Ayine Bukari, is heard in the audio pleading with Adeti to drop the story, saying he had been asked by the Paramount Chief to intervene, and that he and the chief had been supporting the Chinese company “all along.”
Bukari resigned after the audio exploded in public — caught on tape trading on behalf of the Chinese company and the High Court judge to bury the truth.
The Tongraan disassociated himself from Bukari’s remarks, then sued five local voices who discussed the tape — Samuel Sapak, Charles Boazor, Augustine Mmi-oni Guure, Bismark Zumah and Albert Naa.
He did not sue Bukari himself, the man on tape who said he and the chief had been supporting the Chinese company “all along” and that the chief wanted the dark secret buried.
The silence when the bodies come out
If the Tongraan was loud for the mine, he was silent when the mine killed.
The official records are chilling, but they are only a fraction of the true count. Community leaders and civil society groups who have tracked the mining pits since 2008 say more than 80 Ghanaians have died and twice as many have been injured — with some permanently disabled — through the actions of the company since 2008.
Yet through every funeral in Gban, there was no traditional pronouncement, no public ultimatum to the Chinese firm from the Traditional Council. The earth is opened, the mourners return home with inadequate or no compensation, and the Chinese mine continues to roar for gold as though nothing ever happened.
Author’s note: It would not have been Adeti alone
It must be stated clearly that Shaanxi/Earl International has a well-documented method: bribe people to keep quiet.
When the Chinese company offered Adeti a motorbike and Gh¢5,000 to kill the story, it was not a quiet, private temptation. Adeti was working with the Excellence in Broadcasting (EIB) Network at the time. The story belonged to the EIB Network.
If Adeti had accepted those bribes even privately, it would not have been him alone who accepted them but the entire staff of the EIB Network.
The attempt to bribe the journalist was an attempt to bribe the entire EIB Network. The journalist could not be bought then. He will not be silent now.
History will remember what was done with this gold under the reign of a traditional leader who is loud for the Chinese interest but silent when his people die in the Chinese mine.
This editorial is built on the investigations of Edward Adeti.
Source: Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana/West Africa
