The monster called political will
Take, for instance, the issue of the burgeoning business of young men infamously burning used-up car tyres and electronics to extract valuable metals for sale.
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Although the practice clearly endangers the lives of these people and the generality of residents, it has been allowed to fester for years, much to the detriment of the entire nation.
The same applies to the indiscriminate disposal of waste, the Fulani herdsmen menace, commercial motor riding and the almighty illegal mining of gold, which is infamously called galamsey.
While it is true that the country has so far managed to survive the consequences of these preventable menaces, not much can be said of what will be left of us as a nation if these nefarious activities are not eliminated in the shortest possible time.
The situation even gets scarier when one begins to think about what galamsey has done and still does to this country.
Beyond adversely possessing and depriving licensed gold miners of their concessions, galamsey has turned otherwise swampy lands into topsy-turvy grounds, where traces of lead and mercury continue to make it nearly impossible for vegetation to grow.
The situation is not different in the case of water bodies. In the galamsey-prone communities, water bodies such as rivers and their tributaries, dams and streams have been raped mercilessly and their inhabitants killed by foreign materials that range from the lead, mercury and other hazardous chemicals used to crudely extract gold from gold-plated rocks.
Due to the pervasive nature of these acts, fertile arable lands are now home to heaps of gravel and ditches, fresh water bodies are now dead and despised by aquatic animals and the burgeoning mining sector is fast becoming a curse to the host communities.
Sadly, however, although almost every stakeholder -- the media, civil society organizations, licensed miners and the political leaders in particular -- agree that this galamsey menace deserve to be eliminated, not much has been done to curtail it.
This comes down to what has become known as political will, a monster that is constantly blamed for almost every socioeconomic challenge facing this country.
Over the years, political leaders have prioritized elections over the god of the society. As such, they prefer to turn blind eyes to life-threatening challenges for fear of being victimized at the polls should they apply the law to the letter.
A case in point is the setting up of the Presidential Task Force on Galamsey, whose mandate was believes terminate after achieving minimal success.
THE GRAPHIC BUSINESS this is not good for sustainable nation building.
We know that politicians will always want to win power, it is important for them to know that nobody wins power to preside over an empty or troubled country.
As a result, it is imperative for our political leaders to muster the courage and confront head-on the issue of illegal mining for the benefit of the country and the economy in general.
If that is not done, the issue will continue be with us and the magnitude of the damage worsening as the days go by.
Thus, the early we buried that monster call political will and get to work, the better for our mother nation .
