Information reaching me from Ghana this evening of Sunday, 31 January 2021, precisely from a native of Wiamoase in the Ashanti region, is that the Chinese have been given unfettered access to the neem trees in the locality.
They are felling (cutting down) them and cutting them up for export to China. It is not just that they are cropping the trees, remove a few branches and the leaves but rather cutting down the entire trees, right down from their roots to the branches and leaves and shipping them out of the country to China.
One thing I know, since my infancy, is that neem tree is medicinal. Our ancestors and most of the present generation did use and continue to use the leaves of neem trees to cure themselves of fever and other diseases.
As I speak, many people are using it to treat their deadly Covid-19 infection as either a preventive or curative medicine. People do testify to its efficacy in curing a number of diseases, especially when you inhale its vapour when fully covered up in cloth or blanket from your head to toe with a half-bucketful of steaming concoction of neem tree under the cloth or blanket.
Why should the Chinese be allowed to hew down the entire neem trees and ship them out of the country? It takes years for neem trees to grow to the size of their current state as are being cut down by the Chinese.
What could be the reason for Ghanaians selling neem trees for cutting down by the Chinese, if I may ask?
In order not to waste anyone’s time, would the government please look into this report and if confirmed, stop the sale of neem trees to the Chinese? The people of Wiamoase could be contacted to ascertain the veracity of the assertion made by the trusted family friend from Wiamoase.
This felling of the neem trees may not be limited to the Wiamoase environment alone but other areas in Ghana. Are Ghanaians that myopic and stupid as to rid the nation of its medicinal tree for the pittance that the chiefs or the owners of the trees do, or will, receive from the heartless Chinese?
Not long ago, some Ghanaians were conniving with the Chinese to hew down for export the precious rosewood found in the northern parts of Ghana. Why are we so greedy to allow the love of quick buck cloud our intelligence and foresight, if indeed, we have any?
Ghanaians and black Africans must get their act together or else, we shall not in the too distant future wake up to see a Chinese national as President, Chinese nationals as our security officers and hunting us down as once happened to the South African blacks or the Red Indians of America when the European whites first discovered and invaded those areas.
I hope our Ghana politics that already sucks will not be an obstruction to the government intervening to stop the Chinese from buying and cutting down our precious neem trees for export.
The country will be deprived of one of its most acknowledged medicinal tree, thus, the neem tree, if the Chinese were not stopped from cutting them down completely for export. It would be a different ball game if they were harvesting the leaves. However, to cut down the entire trees is unacceptable.
Whoever comes across this publication should please escalate it to the attention of the President and his Vice, the Speaker and Clerk of Parliament and our so-called, but insatiably greedy traditional overlords.
I can’t just understand why our traditional chiefs and elected public officers do superintend such rots going on in the country as are executed by foreigners, principally among whom are the Chinese.
Would Ghana journalists, although some being equally corrupt and unprofessional, please follow up this story and do investigations to help stop the destruction of the neem trees?
Columnist: Rockson Adofo
