Members of the Talensi Mining Communities Initiative (TAMCI), a leading voice championing the rights of mining communities in the Talensi District, have condemned two separate violent attacks reportedly inflicted on two of their colleagues, Bismark Zumah and Duncan Bazimwomit, by some men at the office of the Talensi Traditional Council.
The advocacy group spoke out against the assaults at a press conference held on Wednesday, 3 December 2025, in Bolgatanga, capital of Ghana’s Upper East Region.
Zumah, the chairman of the group, told journalists at the conference that his attackers were affiliated with the palace of Tongraan Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang, the Paramount Chief of Talensi.
He further stated that he had lodged a complaint with the police and provided the names of his attackers in his complaint statement.
TAMCI said the attack took place on Friday, 14 November 2025, while Zumah was interacting with an official of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) on the Talensi Traditional Council’s premises.
The group’s secretary, Gilbert Landola, disclosed that the EPA was scheduled to have a sensitisation meeting with stakeholders, including TAMCI, on the day the incident happened.
The meeting was to discuss the benefits and implications of the Social Responsibility Agreement (SRA) negotiations the communities in the district were expected to hold with the foreign mining companies operating in Talensi.
TAMCI was eager to participate in the meeting, seeing it as an opportunity to table its long-held proposal and ensure the SRA negotiations benefited the entire Talensi community, not just a select few who allegedly had been negotiating with the Chinese companies behind closed doors for personal profits.
EPA ‘disappoints’ TAMCI, other stakeholders
Landola said the EPA, which had stated in its invitation letter that the meeting would take place at the Talensi District Assembly in Tongo, the district’s capital, and would begin at 3:00 p.m., never showed up at the given venue.
He said TAMCI members and other stakeholders arrived on time at the assembly’s premises and waited until around 5:00 p.m.
After the long wait, they learnt that the EPA had changed the venue to the Talensi Traditional Council’s office, without notifying them, and was holding the meeting with only the Paramount Chief of Talensi and some subordinate chiefs present.
Upon learning this, those who had gathered at the assembly’s premises for the meeting dispersed. Landola said Zumah chose to proceed to his church from the assembly’s grounds, riding a motorbike through the main Tongo Road along which the office of the Talensi Traditional Council was located.
How the reported attack happened
As Zumah rode along the road, he saw an assembly member standing on the Talensi Traditional Council’s premises with the EPA’s Upper East Regional Director, Asher Nkegbe, and the secretary to the paramount chief, Richard Sunday Yinbil.
The assembly member greeted him and, as per Landola’s account, invited him to have an interaction with the EPA director.
Continuing the story, Zumah told journalists that as he was parking his motorbike to approach the assembly member and the EPA director, Yinbil walked briskly into the council’s office.
He said no sooner had he gotten to where the two men were standing than four men emerged from the office and attacked him.
“I didn’t even finish my introduction with the man (the EPA director). Before I realised, the people just rushed from inside and in his (the EPA director’s) presence, they started attacking me.
“They are the four people I mentioned in my [police] statement. All of them are from the palace. Anytime you go to the palace, they are the people around the paramount chief,” he stated.
He said the men hit his back, neck, ribs and other parts of his body and, as some people begged them to stop beating him, they further removed the key in the ignition switch of his motorbike and pushed the bike down.
“People were even trying to separate them from me, but still, until a policeman came around and forced them to release my motor key. The policeman raised the motor from the ground, escorted me from the plac,e and asked me to leave the scene,” he added.
He also recalled his attackers asking him, as they were beating him, “TAMCI man, what do you need here?” and saying, “We don’t even want to see any TAMCI members around here,” when he replied that he had not come to join their meeting.
Bazimwomit’s account
Sharing his own experience, Bazimwomit said he was driven away from the Talensi Traditional Council’s premises and manhandled when he went there after he learnt that the EPA had moved the stakeholders’ meeting from the district assembly to that venue.
According to him, the incident happened a few minutes before the reported assault on Zumah took place.
He stated that the Chief of Baare, Naab Nyarkora Mantii, on seeing him around, stormed at him and angrily forbade him from registering his name for the EPA-led stakeholders’ meeting.
The chief, according to him, accused him and other TAMCI members of “going round, insulting chiefs”.
Bazimwomit said he refuted the chief’s claim and, while he was demanding proof from him showing that any TAMCI member ever insulted any chief anywhere, a group of people advanced on him aggressively on the veranda of the office.
“Before I finished my statement, people dashed at me. They [wanted to beat me; I stepped out. They were coming out. I lay on the ground where Tongraan’s car was parked.
“I leaned myself against the car so that, because of the car, they would leave me. I was using the car to protect myself. There was a man called Peter Bassana. He came out. And Baare Naba also pretends [sic] and adds [sic] to Bassana to block the people from attacking me,” Bazimwomit recounted.
He said he escaped the scene unscathed after a motorcyclist, who was present at the scene, generously offered him a ride.
The familiar tension before the reported attack
Zumah told reporters he suspected Yinbil was the one who engineered the assault on him because the attackers emerged from the building immediately after Yinbil entered.
While it remains unclear if the paramount chief’s secretary actually instigated the attack on Zumah, it is an undeniable fact that there was undisguised opposition between TAMCI members and the paramount chief before Zumah was attacked.
The paramount chief is widely seen as the paramount promoter and spokesperson for the Chinese mining companies in Talensi.
This entrenched perception is due to his own public utterances and questionable silence on some horrifying human rights abuses associated with those foreign mining companies operating within his traditional jurisdiction.
On the other hand, TAMCI has remained a constant thorn in the flesh of the Chinese companies. The group says it has respect for the Talensi Paramountcy but disagrees with how the institution “is being used to benefit a few individuals rather than the entire Talensi population”.
TAMCI has led several protests and demonstrations, fearlessly demanding an immediate framing and execution of a social responsibility agreement document covering the interests of the entire Talensi and not the interests of a few.
In August, this year, the paramount chief imposed an indefinite ban on TAMCI.
Then, during a “coerced” reconciliation meeting held at his palace the following month, he ordered the leading members of the group to pay some fines. The fines included rams and a bull, which he intended to sacrifice to his ancestral gods.
TAMCI members dismissed the fines entirely as baseless and unacceptable, making it clear they had done nothing to even warrant an apology or such a penalty.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Talensi, Daniel Dung Mahama, who was part of that “coerced” reconciliation meeting, opted to pay the fines to the chief on TAMCI’s behalf.
“Interestingly, it was Hon. Daniel Mahama himself who publicly agreed to honour those fines on behalf of TAMCI.
“If he has failed to fulfill his own promise, he must address that matter— and not target TAMCI for his own commitments,” said the group in a statement signed by Landola and issued at Wednesday’s press conference.
TAMCI counts losses suffered by the Talensi people
During the press conference, TAMCI said the operations of the foreign mining companies in Talensi had caused “severe losses” to the locals.
Counting the losses, the group mentioned destruction of farmlands, felling of economic trees, dispossession of livelihoods as well as recurrent deaths and disabilities of locals working under dangerous conditions, particularly at Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited, formerly known as Shaanxi Mining (Ghana) Limited.
They also mentioned environmental pollution, poor resettlement schemes and discriminatory hiring practices.
“For example, Cardinal Namdini reports 2,135 employees, yet fewer than 10 Talensis are in skilled labour and none in managerial roles.
“This is unacceptable, discriminatory and disrespectful to the people whose land the company occupies,” TAMCI stated.
The group also expressed concerns about state agencies’ failure to investigate a mining employment committee formed by the Tongraan and led by the Chief of Baare.
TAMCI demands ‘immediate actions’ at press conference
After enumerating the losses, the group made a number of demands, including: the establishment of what they called a legitimate Talensi Mine Forum, fair community development funding, fair local content provision, immediate end to violence against TAMCI members, and impartiality from the state security agencies.
Under the Talensi Mine Forum, TAMCI called for the inclusion of all traditional authorities, youth and opinion leaders (including TAMCI) and the leadership of the Talensi District Assembly.
“No single individual, including the Tongraan, the MP, or the DCE (District Chief Executive) should unilaterally form committees or control negotiations.
“TAMCI rejects the so-called Negotiations Committee set up by the Tongraan. It lacks legitimacy, broad representation and accountability,” the group stressed.
In the area of fair community development, the group said mining companies must contribute 5% of annual pre-tax net profit and $5 for every ounce of gold sold.
“The funds must be managed by an Independent Board of Trustees, not by self-selected individuals,” it recommended.
About fair local content provisions, TAMCI said: “We demand 90% of unskilled labour for locals, 65% of skilled labour for locals and 35% of mining support service contracts for locals.”
TAMCI wrapped up the conference with a call for the arrest and prosecution of all the persons involved in the attack on Zumah and assault on Bazimwomit.
“Security agencies must not apply the law selectively to favour those with influence. Justice must be equal for all.
“We urge all Talensis to stand firm and united. Our fight is not against any individual but against poverty, injustice, exclusion and exploitation. Mining companies must not be allowed to divide us while they continue to profit at our expense,” TAMCI emphasised.
Response from Chief of Baare
When the author of this report contacted the Chief of Baare for his side of the story, he confirmed that he barred Bazimwomit from taking part in the meeting.
He said he did so because neither Bazimwomit nor TAMCI was invited to the meeting at the traditional council.
The chief said the EPA was to meet with TAMCI and other stakeholders separately.
He stressed that the meeting Bazimwomit wanted to attend at the traditional council was exclusively meant for traditional authorities and that he genuinely, not pretentiously, protected Bazimwomit when the men were about to assault him.
“I told him that you cannot be insulting chiefs and elderly people, and you think that you can be here. I was referring to him as an individual; I never mentioned TAMCI. He asked me if I had ever heard him insulting me. Actually, before man and God, I have never heard him say anything against me. So, I tapped him on the shoulder and said it’s okay.
“Then, when the people started rushing [at Bazimwomit], I was also struggling because if anything should happen to him, my name would be mentioned. So, I had to do whatever I could to make sure it didn’t happen. They could have beaten him up. The people were many. At the end of the day, maybe you would not even know the one who slapped or the one who didn’t slap because they were many,” the chief told Media Without Borders.
He added: “I did my best, and Mr Peter Bassana came and supported. So, if he said I pretended to be blocking, I’m not happy with that statement. People were pulling me up and down, and you think that I was pretending. Why should I pretend? If I didn’t want it, I would leave there.”
Speaking on Zumah’s assault, the chief said he had cause to thank an assemblyman on the telephone for preventing the attack from being worse.
“The Tongo-Beo Assemblyman also made sure that he fought seriously to prevent people from beating Zumah. But I’m not saying that they didn’t beat him. I’m saying that his efforts also helped. I was not there. But that is what people say happened.
“But for the Tongo-Beo Assemblyman, it wouldn’t have been good. The following morning, I called Tongo-Beo Assemblyman and said, ‘I’m calling you to thank you for what you did yesterday because I heard that, but for you it wouldn’t have been good for us’. If you have his number, ask him,” the chief stated.
Efforts made by this writer to reach the Tongraan’s secretary (mentioned earlier as Richard Sunday Yinbil) for his comment on the allegations made at the press conference yielded no results.
As usual, he did not answer the telephone calls placed to him. After receiving a message on the matter via WhatsApp from the author, he asked that he come to the palace.
The writer declined to visit the palace for security reasons, insisting that the secretary address the issue over the phone, just like the Chief of Baare did.
The public would recall that the secretary similarly did not reply when this author contacted him in 2023 for comment after some teachers at the Bolgatanga Senior High School (Big Boss) accused some men from Tongraan’s palace of taking their goats.
The teachers said the goats were untied from the school’s unfenced premises without permission and taken away to use for sacrifice.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
