President John Dramani Mahama's revelation at the Jubilee House on Tuesday should shock every Ghanaian parent and policymaker into deep reflection.
"Often, when enforcing the fight against galamsey, we find even senior high school (SHS) students in illegal mining pits. When you ask them why they are there, they say their fathers could not give them money to go to school, so they have come to work and earn some money," he said.
This was not opposition propaganda. This was the President of the Republic, hosting the Western North Regional House of Chiefs led by Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II, admitting that the galamsey war is now catching our own schoolchildren in its trenches.
If SHS students — children we claim are beneficiaries of Free SHS — are abandoning the classroom for mining pits because their parents cannot afford to keep them in school, then we have a far deeper crisis than polluted rivers.
We have a crisis of livelihood, of hope, and of the social contract.
President Mahama was candid. He said hundreds of young people were awaiting trial, many on bail, for illegal mining.
"It saddens me that we have to enforce the law and that some of these young people may have to go to jail," he said. It should sadden all of us. But sadness is not a strategy.
The fact that SHS students are in galamsey pits is a damning indictment of our enforcement approach over the last decade.
Operation Vanguard, Operation Halt, GalamStop, inter-ministerial committees — they have all come and gone.
Yet the pits remain, and now they have our children in them. Enforcement that only arrests the poor boy with a shovel while the financiers, the excavator owners, and the gold buyers operate freely will never succeed.
The President must ensure that law enforcement targets the value chain — the sponsors, the equipment suppliers, the corrupt officials who look away.
Arresting hundreds of youth and keeping them in endless trials is not justice; it is warehousing poverty.
The President himself acknowledged the danger of enforcement without legitimacy.
He appealed to the chiefs for support, noting that in some communities, youth and traditional authorities fight back against the task force, leading to incidents where soldiers have discharged firearms, resulting in deaths.
You cannot shoot your way out of a livelihood crisis.
When enforcement is seen as an invading force from Accra, it breeds resistance.
When it is done with chiefs, with local ownership, it has a chance. This is why the involvement of the Western North Regional House of Chiefs is critical.
Western North is the heart of Ghana's forest reserves and cocoa belt, now heavily degraded by galamsey.
Chiefs live in these communities.
They know who owns which excavator, who brings the changfang, who buys the gold at night.
Without their genuine collaboration — not just courtesy visits to Jubilee House — the Blue Water Guards will be overwhelmed.
Some of the chiefs must also be held accountable.
Some have been complicit in giving out lands for galamsey. Collaboration must mean transparency, not protection of illegality.
Previous alternative livelihood programmes — like the Community Mining Scheme and the National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme (NAELP) — promised so much and delivered so little, largely because they were underfunded, politicised, and poorly targeted at the actual youth in the pits.
That SHS student who told the task force his father could not give him money for school exposes a crack in Free SHS. Free SHS covers tuition and feeding, but parents still pay for prospectus, extra classes, transportation, and upkeep.
In poor mining communities where farming incomes have collapsed due to polluted water, even GH¢200 is too much.
We need immediate social protection — targeted scholarships, school support funds, and paid holiday work programmes. Galamsey is no longer just an environmental issue.
It is an educational emergency, a youth employment crisis, and a security threat.
When SHS students choose pits over classrooms, we are mortgaging Ghana's future for a few grams of gold.
President Mahama is right: enforcement alone cannot solve it. But alternatives alone cannot either if enforcement remains weak and selective.
We need a compact with the people of Western North and all mining regions: chiefs, youth, women, farmers, and miners themselves, built on three pillars — relentless enforcement against kingpins, not just kids; rapid, funded alternatives that put cash in young people's pockets now; and restoration of dignity and opportunity in the classroom.
Otherwise, we will continue counting hundreds of youth awaiting trial, while the real culprits count their gold.
