Ghana’s Hidden War
By Beatrice ‘Bee’ Arthur
Accra, Ghana
Like most Ghanaians, I am deeply disturbed by the helicopter crash that occurred yesterday, claiming the lives of eight of our compatriots—including two sitting Ministers of State. It has mentally paralysed me. I can barely focus on my work, though creativity is usually my refuge. Instead, I find myself scrolling endlessly through news updates and social media, leaving comments of condolence that feel small against the weight of this grief. I cannot begin to imagine the pain their families are enduring.
Yesterday, 6th August 2025, marked the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—an unhealed scar on the conscience of humanity. I remembered the date, as I always do, and reflected on the horrors of war. Coincidentally, it is also a relative’s birthday, so I sent a birthday wish—then spent the rest of the morning hoping, as I do every year, that no country ever resorts to nuclear weapons again. Especially now, with the world teetering—amid ongoing conflicts involving the USA, Ukraine, Russia, and Israel.
And then, by midday, the news broke.
Eight lives lost in a helicopter crash.
It destabilised me.
I understood, viscerally, that warfare is not always waged with bombs.
Sometimes, the battlefield is the sky.
Sometimes, the damage is not explosive, but systemic.
Ghana is officially a peaceful country. We pride ourselves on our stability in a region often marred by conflict. But the truth is, Ghana is a war zone—not in the traditional sense, but in the silent, insidious, and internal sense.
We are a country at war with ourselves.
A nation where fatalism has become a coping mechanism, and “God’s Will” is too often used to absolve greed, negligence, and corruption.
But let us be clear:
Greed kills.
Corruption kills.
Complacency kills.
And when allowed to fester, these things become acts of war—acts of war against the land, against the people, against the future.
The deaths of Environment Minister Murtala Mohammed and Defence Minister Dr Edward Omane Boamah were not random. They were en route to Obuasi, ground zero in our long, losing battle with galamsey. They died in service, trying to reclaim dignity for a land being disembowelled for profit.
Our Defence Minister did not fall in battle
he fell in service,
en route to a battlefield shaped not by bullets,
but by greed.
A battlefield where the enemy digs quietly,
in daylight and darkness,
with excavators for guns
and mercury for blood.
The Environment Minister died, not because the skies were cruel, but because we have allowed our soil, our water, our trees, our lungs—to be desecrated for too long. Because we have normalised the abnormal: that gold is worth more than green, and profit more than people.
The absolute greed and insensitivity of those who engage in galamsey - and the complacency of some traditional leaders in areas where illegal mining thrives - necessitated their journey to Obuasi. It became their last.
President Mahama has since declared three days of national mourning. Flags will fly at half-mast. But will our moral compass rise?
The hands that hold the shovels and machines are not the only ones stained. Where are the regulators? The traditional leaders? The enforcers? The consciences? The system - this system - sent these men to their deaths. And if we don’t change it, it will send many more.
This is a moment not just for mourning, but for reckoning. Galamsey has killed them. And if we’re honest, it is killing all of us.
By Beatrice Bee Arthur. Accra - Ghana.