Death and brutality: The battle for West Africa’s largest salt deposit 

Modzifa Anim has just returned home from a long, exhausting day in the market. She had been on her feet since dawn, navigating the hustle and bustle of Makola, the biggest outdoor market in Ghana. She had gone to buy goods to restock her small shop in Ada, a coastal town about 100 kilometres east of Accra.

By the time she got home around 1:00 pm, she only wanted to wash away the sweat and dust and rest her aching body. When she quietly slipped into the makeshift wooden bathroom in the compound she shares with 12 other households, she was expecting a moment of peace and quiet.

But as Modzifa undressed to bath in the small, rickety enclosure, a man with a gun barged in. Without a word, he grabbed her roughly by the beads she wore around her waist, dragging her half-naked body out into the open.

She screamed, but the pushing and shoving continued. The man dragged her over a distance of about two kilometres, with sounds of gunfire all around her. She was dumped into the bucket of a waiting police pickup truck, along with 29 others who had been rounded up in what appeared to be a raid on the neighbourhood.

That day was the worst of my life,” Modzifa says, her voice quivering. “It pains me because amidst the gunshots and dragging me almost naked, they were taking pictures of me.”

The indignity Modzifa suffered on August 9, 2021, marked one of many violent confrontations in Ada over the rights to what Third World Network (TWN Africa), an NGO, describes as the largest salt deposit in West Africa.

The clashes date back to the 1980s, when commercial miners first went to the area to exploit its rich salt deposits.

The bloodiest clash at the time resulted in the death of a pregnant woman, Magaret Kuwornu (Maggie), who was shot by security personnel who were reportedly warding off trespassers encroaching on the concession of a commercial salt mining company known as Vacuum Salt Products Limited.

It led to the setting up of the Amissah Committee of Inquiry to investigate and recommend how commercial and local artisanal salt mining could co-exist. The commission concluded its work by presenting a master plan, which stipulated against the granting of any monopoly rights over the Ada Songor Salt deposit.

“In order to avoid what could give cause for conflict which could again seriously hamper salt production, it is necessary to establish the pacific co-existence of the companies and the Ada people,” the master plan, adopted in 1991, specifies. “None of the interested parties alone can assume management of so complex a matter.”  

The interested parties mentioned in the master plan included the Ada Traditional Council, the government of Ghana, salt mining co-operatives and the two commercial salt mining companies in the area at the time – Vacuum Salt Products Limited and Star Chemical Industries Limited.

Shortly after the adoption of the master plan, the PNDC (Provisional National Defence Council) military government led by Jerry John Rawlings passed a law that nationalised the Ada Songor Salt basin. The law led to the termination of the leases of Vacuum Salt Products Limited and Star Chemical Industries Limited. The state took over the machinery and equipment of Vacuum Salt and renamed it “Ada Songor Salt Project”.

These changes reduced tensions between the small-scale miners and the newly-formed company. Over time, however, it became evident that the full potential of the salt basin was not being realised. The traditional leaders of Ada were not happy with the decline in production and started making overtures to the government to take decisive steps to put the company on the path of profitability.

“The lagoon was spoiling and people kept approaching the Paramount Chief. So, the Paramount Chief started pleading with the government leaders,” says Nene Agudey Obitchere III, the spokesperson for the Ada Traditional Council.

As they pushed for an intervention to revamp the Songor Salt Project, the Ada Traditional Council started engaging with businessman Daniel McKorley (widely known in Ghana as McDan), eventually signing an investment Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with him to take over the Ada Songor Salt project in September 2019.

Nine months after the MOU was signed with McDan, the Paramount Chief of Ada, Nene Abram Kabu Akuaku III, led his sub-chiefs and the heads of the land-owning clans in the area to inform President Akufo-Addo about it. The president later endorsed the deal between the Ada Traditional Council and McDan, who had by this time founded a company called Electrochem Ghana Limited (EGL) to run his salt mining operations in Ada.

But instead of bringing joy and jobs to Ada, the deal between the Traditional Council and Electrochem, with the blessing and endorsement of the government, has sparked off a new wave of internecine clashes, reminiscent of the violence of the 1980s.

When the Traditional Council’s deal with Electrochem became public, the chiefs and elders were not happy about how the news was broken to the people by Radio Ada, the most successful community radio station in Ghana.

The management of the station was summoned before the chiefs, who reprimanded them and demanded apologies from the station. But the station didn’t relent and instead, designed a programme specifically devoted to discussing the implications of the lease agreement with Electrochem.

On January 13, 2022, in the midst of a mid-morning show discussing marriage and relationships, about a dozen masked men, wielding broken bottles and guns, attacked Radio Ada, destroying equipment and assaulting staff.

“But for friends and some elders, I would have stopped working here at Radio Ada,” continuity announcer, Gabriel Adjaotor, says, stressing that the attackers beat him “beyond imagination”.

Following the attack, Radio Ada couldn’t transmit for several days. It took the intervention of NGOs like the Media Foundation for West Africa and other philanthropists for the station to be able to replace its vandalised equipment.

When transmission resumed, they went back to discussing the Songor Salt lease with Electrochem. One presenter in particular, Noah Dameh, who was one of the ardent critics of the deal, was arrested and detained for alleged publication of fake news about McDan and Electrochem.

As he was being prosecuted, he spent a week in police custody, during which his family and friends say he was denied access to vital medication. One day after a court hearing, he went home and died suddenly.

“If one day they hear that I have died a mysterious death, it is about the Songor Lagoon that has been leased on monopoly to Electrochem,” he said in a video recording before his death.

“That issue is what would have put me into the grave because of the frequent harassment, persecution, prosecution and putting me behind bars, coupled with the planned assassination on 13 January 2022 [the day the mob attacked Radio Ada].”

Noah Dameh’s death devastated many in Ada but kept the issues around the lease to Electrochem alive and brought it to national attention.

“I feel sad because our voice is gone,” says Abraham Karim Ahumah, a spokesperson for the Ada Songor Lagoon Association, the co-operative of local artisanal salt miners. “Noah was not a salt producer or miner. But he felt deeply about what was happening to us. He made sure people heard our struggles.”

The struggles of the artisanal salt miners largely began after Electrochem took over the Songor salt Project, according to Ahumah.

Until the company came into the picture, the artisanal salt miners had ample access to the lagoon to be able to earn a living. But with the entry of Electrochem, their access was severely restricted.

Electrochem, according to the MOU with the Ada Traditional Council, was entitled to the properties of the ersthwhile “Songor Salt Project/factory and portions of clan land measuring approximately 12,428 acres”. But it now claims to own 41,000 acres of land, which is the entirety of the Songor Lagoon. This means that anytime an artisanal miner tries to mine salt in the lagoon, he is liable to a charge of trespass and/or encroachment.

On November 6, 2023, a group of artisanal salt miners were attacked by a group of machete- and gun-wielding men. They hacked at the artisanal miners and shot at them indiscriminately. One man, Korletey Agormedah, died at the scene from gunshot wounds. Several others were injured.

“He was a good person. We miss him a lot,” Veronica Apronti says of her late brother, Agormedah. “He was a quiet person. Even if he didn’t have anything to give you, he would comfort you.”

Attacks like the one that led to Agormedah’s death have put the whole community on edge, raising tensions between the artisanal miners and Electrochem.

Violent clashes are frequent – sometimes Electrochem staff come under attack and other times, brutality is visited on communities around the Songor Lagoon.

Between 2021 and 2023, there were at least 28 recorded clashes, leaving dozens, including minors, injured. It was during one of such bouts of attack and reprisal in August 2021 that Modzifa Anim was dragged half-naked from her bathroom and sent to a police station in Tema, where she and 29 others were detained for two weeks without bail.

Violent clashes between 2021 and 2023

The staff of Electrochem who have been attacked so far are usually natives of Ada. Their kinsmen see them as traitors who have betrayed their people by choosing to work with Electrochem. One of them, 54-year-old Ebenezer Teye Siwornu, was severely beaten, leaving him with injuries that have left him with a serious limp in his right leg.

“I am not getting it easy,” Mr. Siwornu says. “I used to farm but now I cannot do anything. I am not well.”

Electrochem is also concerned about what it describes as the vandalisation of its equipment. A spokesman for the company, Bernard Korley, says violence is impeding its operations and making it difficult for it to fulfill some of its obligations under the lease agreement.

“Believe me, anytime our surveyors get closer to one or two particular communities, the next thing that happens is you will see some of the local folks attacking our workers.”  

As the company and inhabitants trade accusations over who is responsible for the violence, deaths, and injuries, what becomes abundantly clear is that neither side is happy with the state of affairs – the fact is that the situation in Ada is now more volatile than ever, with the area teetering on the brink of a full-blown crisis.

The brutal dragging of half-naked Modzifa from her bathroom, the sudden death of Noah Dameh, the killing of Agormedah, and the severe injuries suffered by Siwornu are not isolated incidents. They represent a pattern of violence that has gripped Ada since Electrochem took control of the Songor Salt Project.

The tensions today are far worse than those that resulted in the death of a pregnant Margret Kuwornu in 1985. Back then, her death compelled swift action from the sitting government, with President J.J Rawlings personally overseeing the transportation of her body to Accra in a military helicopter and commissioning an inquiry to prevent further bloodshed.

Today, with even more lives disrupted and the conflict escalating, President Akufo-Addo—who approved the Electrochem deal—remains detached from the fray, his silence palpable.

Father Joop Visser, a Dutch Catholic priest who played a pivotal role in the resolution of the Songor Lagoon disputes with President Rawlings in the 1980s, sees eerie parallels between then and now.

“The rich-poor divide has to be transformed into one of equality and justice,” he warns, urging the government to act before it’s too late.

If this divide is not addressed, Father Visser fears that “the social contradictions will increase, and casualties and confrontations may occur more frequently, destroying peace and unity” in Ada.

Part two of this story will focus on the economic impact of Electrochem’s operation in Ada.