The sermon that echoed through Action Chapel International this past weekend by Nicholas Duncan-Williams, was not just a call to prayer. It was a warning. A warning that our democracy, our environment, and our national security are being quietly eroded – not by foreign armies, but by our own refusal to enforce the law.
The General Overseer’s account was plain: international buyers of illegally sourced gold are now approaching the Gold Board because “they can’t get the gold like before illegally.” They have records of gold transactions that Ghana itself does not have.
The gold Ghana cannot account for, he claimed, is “more than what Ghana sold to them.”
If true, this is more than an economic scandal. It is a national security risk.
1. The Security Risk
Unregulated gold is not just lost revenue. It funds parallel power structures. When illegal mining syndicates operate with impunity, they arm themselves, corrupt local officials, and create zones where the state has no authority.
Poisoned water bodies and destroyed farmlands, as mentioned in the sermon, are not only environmental disasters. They are breeding grounds for conflict, migration, and public health crises that will burden the state for generations.
More dangerous is the admission that buyers keep better records than the state. That signals intelligence failure, regulatory capture, and the possibility that illicit networks know more about our resource flows than our own institutions.
A state that cannot track its gold cannot track the money, the guns, or the people moving with it.
2. Democracy at Risk
The core of the concern raised was political. “If anybody tries to make it work and enforce the law, we turn everything to politics,” the preacher said.
“Because people don’t want to lose their seat in parliament or they don’t want their party to lose they give in and allow lawlessness to continue.” That is the heart of the crisis.
Democracy is not just elections. It is the rule of law applying equally to everyone. When enforcement of mining laws, environmental regulations, and financial controls is suspended for fear of losing votes, we do not have democracy. We have electoral authoritarianism – where politicians are accountable to party financiers and constituencies, not to the constitution or to future generations.
This creates a dangerous cycle: illegal actors fund politics, politics protects illegal actors, and the public loses faith in institutions. Over time, citizens stop believing the state can deliver justice, clean water, or a future. That is how democracies hollow out from within.
3. A Student of History’s Warning
The speaker framed himself as “a student of prophecy and a student of history.” History teaches that nations do not collapse in a single day. They collapse when short-term political survival is placed above long-term national survival. When land is poisoned, when children inherit debts and toxic rivers instead of assets, when the law is negotiable, the social contract breaks.
What Must Be Done
This is not a partisan issue. It is a Ghana issue.
- (I) Strengthen the Gold Board and investigative agencies with independence from political interference, and publish transparent data on all gold purchases and exports.
- Enforce the law without exception. No MP, minister, or party financier should be above prosecution.
(II) Depoliticize enforcement. Create bipartisan oversight for natural resource governance so that cracking down on galamsey is not seen as “attacking the other party.”
- (III) National dialogue. We need an honest conversation about the trade-off between immediate jobs in illegal mining and the long-term survival of our water, food systems, and democracy.
The preacher ended with a call to prayer: “Heavenly Father.” But prayer without policy is wishful thinking. God helps those who help themselves. Ghana’s gold, water, and democracy are not renewable if we destroy them now.
If we continue to allow politics to override law, we will not just lose an election. We will lose the country our children and grandchildren are supposed to inherit.
Hmm!! #LordKnows
Ghana|Atinkaonline.com| Ebenezer Madugu| ebenezermadugu@gmail.com