"They will push you to Fight Galamsey with lethal force, then turn around to make political gains out of it. These are the same people who are calling for state of emergency. NAIMOS and their operations must be reviewed before they send NDC back to opposition," the Ashanti Regional Minister, Frank Amoakohene has said.
Reacting to last week's clash between the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) and some community members at Manso Keniago in the Ashanti Region, which resulted in the reported death of six people and injuries to others, the Ashanti Regional Minister wrote on Facebook, "I am beginning to agree with NAPO [Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh] and Dr Ayew on their remarks on the fight against illegal mining."
To the regional minister, the government’s approach to the fight against illegal mining needed to be carefully examined.
This follows the deaths recorded during the confrontation at Manso Keniago and the conflicting account from some community members and the NAIMOS secretariat on what resulted in the disagreement and how the confrontation started.
Dr Amoakohene's post on Facebook on Saturday [November 14, 2026] followed remarks by the New Patriotic Party’s Director of Communications, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, who had called on the state to account for the six deaths recorded at Manso Keniago during the NAIMOS operation last week.
Mr Aboagye had demanded a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding each death, arguing that the victims should not all be presumed to have been illegal miners or members of a group that confronted the task force.
NAIMOS in an official statement immediately after the November 11, 2026 incident explained that an armed mob attacked its personnel during an anti-illegal operation at Manso Keniago, while their task force was transporting excavators seized during the operation to a designated location for safekeeping.
According to NAIMOS, in the course of the exercise, the personnel encountered an armed mob that attempted to forcibly obstruct the lawful movement of the seized equipment.
Faced with the hostile situation, the NAIMOS personnel according to the secretariat fired warning shots in an attempt to deter the mob and prevent a further escalation of the confrontation.
This resulted in two personnel of NAIMOS sustaining gunshot wounds in the incident according to NAIMOS.
Six community members reportedly died.
However, according to some community members in various narratives, they were in the Keniago township when they saw the NAIMOS personnel moving the seized excavator directly on a tarred road.
According to them, the excavator tracks were destroying the road and so their chief had instructed them to tell the NAIMOS personnel to park and rather use a low-bed trailer to transport it so as to prevent it from destroying the tarred road.
They have showed videos of how the portions of the tarred road had been damaged following the movement of the excavator directly on the the tarred road..
This, disagreement they said is what resulted in the confrontation as they were insisting that, the NAIMOS personnel should park it to save their road.
