The High Court ‘2’ in Bolgatanga, capital of Ghana’s Upper East Region, has delivered a ruling in favour of Zongdan Boyak Kolog, a famous Ghanaian small-scale miner better known as Polo, against Chinese-owned Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited, formerly known as Shaanxi Mining (Ghana) Limited, and four Ghanaian co-defendants.
The ruling, pronounced on Tuesday, 10 February 2026, is the court’s final word on an earlier decision it made on Friday, 21 November 2025, concerning an application Polo filed through his lawyer, Abena Ankoma Asomaning.
The latest pronouncement means Polo is free to go back to his concession and work there with the police protection and assistance he requested.
Polo dragged the Chinese mining company to the high court in 2023 with a claim that the large-scale miner had taken over his licensed concession at Gban, a community in the Talensi District, without his consent. He also filed an application at the court seeking “an order for police protection and assistance” to allow him work on his concession.
After the court, with Justice Ernest Pascal Gemadzie presiding, granted Polo’s application on November 21, 2025, it temporarily vacated (suspended) the same order on Tuesday, 16 December 2025.
The judge did so temporarily because the Chinese company’s legal team, led at the time by Joseph Awakpaksa, stressed that the order could trigger security risks in the mining community and the team filed a motion (a formal request) asking the court to vacate the order.
Polo’s lawyer was not present when the court suspended the order. And when she appeared in court again on Thursday, 29 January, 2026, to counter the motion, Shaanxi’s Awakpaksa was absent.
The case, with suit number UE/BG/HC2/C1/06/2023, was adjourned to February 10, 2026, for the court’s final say on Polo’s application for “an order for police protection and assistance” and the motion filed against the order by the Chinese company.
On February 10, both sides were represented by legal counsel. Still, the Chinese company introduced a new lead counsel, Mujeeb Rahman Ahmed, who was represented by two lawyers, Flavin Gai and William Majeed Mahama.
After reading out the 16-page ruling, Justice Gemadzie concluded: “The application at the instance of the 1st Defendant/Applicant (the Chinese company) is dismissed and cost of Gh¢5,000 awarded in favour of the Plaintiff/Respondent (Polo) against the 1st Defendant/Applicant (the Chinese company).”
When the court suspended the order in December, the Chinese company’s allies celebrated, circulating soft copies of the interim order on social media.
Similarly, Polo’s supporters have been jubilating everywhere, although in moderation, since the court’s final decision on the matter went in his favour on Tuesday. Their reprisal jubilation, as far as this latest ruling is concerned, will last through the approaching Valentine’s Day celebrations and beyond.
As of the time of writing this report, the jubilant supporters, particularly those of Talensi descent as Polo himself, were impatiently waiting to grab a copy of the latest ruling and share it far and wide, too.
More important details from the background
In 2023, Polo complained to the Upper East Regional Police Command that the Chinese company had encroached on a gold-mining concession he owned and operated under the business name Nanlamtaaba Enterprise.
The police advised him to file a suit against the company, and he did so on Thursday, 2 March 2023. He added the Minerals Commission and three individuals to the suit as co-defendants.
The three other defendants included Thomas Wuni Duanab, Elijah Nab Pardnyuun and Pardzie Nab. Duanab was the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Talensi between October 2021 and January 2025. Pardnyuun is the sub-divisional chief of Gban. And Pardzie, widely known in the district as Commando, is the chief’s younger brother.
As the case progressed, Polo sought an interlocutory injunction order from the court restraining the defendants and their associates from entering his concession. His request was granted on Thursday, 23 February 2023.
Later, he filed an application through his lawyers citing the defendants for contempt of court for reportedly flouting the injunction order.
But the court could not determine the contempt application as Justice Alexander Graham, the judge presiding at the time, suddenly fled the region following a violent attack on his residence in Bolgatanga from some unidentified persons on Wednesday, 15 March 2023.
The attack happened five days after the judge was celebrated nationwide for convicting and sentencing two men sent to him by the Paramount Chief of Talensi, Tongraan Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang, to invite him to his palace.
The two men reportedly told the judge that the invitation was meant to discuss some cases being heard in his court and involving some parties from Talensi.
Justice Graham considered the invitation as an attempt to influence his decisions on those cases and called for the immediate arrest of the two men.
While the two men— the Tongraan’s secretary, Richard Sunday Yinbil, and the Chief of Baare, Naab Nyarkora Mantii— stood in the box on contempt of court charges on Friday, 10 March 2023, the judge furiously asked them to produce the Tongraan himself before him for prosecution.
But the paramount chief, who is widely perceived as an ally of the Chinese mining company, escaped conviction after some lawyers, numbering about twelve, pleaded with the judge to pardon him.
Many people suspected that the paramount chief had intended to influence the judge during or after the proposed meeting, targeting the parties he and the Chinese company did not like. It is public knowledge that there is a longstanding feud between the paramount chief and Polo.
After the secret mission to the judge’s chambers backfired, the noise of the outcome thundered across the country. Stories about the incident were widely publicised by countless media houses nationwide.
Why does Polo ask the court for police protection?
Polo was compelled to stay away from his concession during that period after one Naab Ibrahim Awudu, a Talensi-based gold miner who proudly calls himself Gold Baron, incited some youth in Gban to attack him.
Police arrested Gold Baron after Polo lodged a complaint with evidence (an audio recording of the threat). Gold Baron was charged with “threat of harm contrary to Section 74 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29)” and convicted with a noncustodial sentence on Friday, 31 January 2025, at the Circuit Court in Bolgatanga.
Gold Baron is a nephew of both the Chief of Gban and Commando, two of the five co-defendants involved in the ongoing case at High Court ‘2’ with Polo. He became the Assemblyman for Gaare-Gban on Tuesday, 19 December 2023— two years before his conviction.
Polo has also been a target of several “unjustifiable” arrests and a victim of sponsored disinformation coordinated and circulated on both social and mainstream media platforms to portray him as a lawbreaker.
One of the reasons he applied to the court for “an order for police protection and assistance” was the “threat of harm” he faced when Gold Baron called on the youth of the community to harm him.
Six days before Gold Baron was convicted at the Circuit Court, about twenty men accosted Polo when he visited his concession at Gban on Saturday, 25 January 2025.
One of the men had a pistol tucked into his shorts at his waist. They were civilians and members of the community. They verbally assaulted Polo and ordered him to leave the site.
Polo left, but he returned there the following day with some of his workers to inspect the concession. After he came out of the site, he and his workers came under a gun attack from some unknown persons while he was still on his way out of the community.
A bullet from the gunmen blasted through his car and whistled past the forehead of one of his workers, Atta Yin, leaving a deep cut above his left eyebrow. Yin was rushed to the Upper East Regional Hospital on a black Range Rover with bullet-smashed screens. He survived.
Justice Alexander Graham never returned to the region after he fled the region in the wake of the violent attack.
His successor, Justice Frederick Kwabena Twumasi, also fled the region following another violent attack reportedly directed at him just two weeks after he took over the high court. The alleged perpetrators are yet to be identified.
Justice Twumasi’s successor, Justice Ernest Pascal Gemadzie, inherited the case and convicted Gold Baron and five others of contempt of court in 2025 for flouting the interlocutory injunction order Justice Alexander Graham issued in 2023 prior to the midnight raid on his residence.
Justice Gemadzie subsequently would go on to grant Polo’s application for “an order for police protection and assistance” last November, suspend the order in December for security reasons, and restore the decision in February.
The case has been adjourned to Tuesday, 10 March 2026, for the hearing of the substantive (main) matter, a dispute about concession ownership, as Polo now prepares to return to his licensed concession and resume work with police protection and assistance.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana/West Africa
