Her trial which begins tomorrow, Wednesday, September 14, 2022, would be one monitored, scrutinised and judged in the court of public opinion.

Aisha En Huang, the Chinese national at the heart of the most talked about galamsey saga had held the control spellbound.

But why is it difficult to prosecute her and how important is she to even warrant a presidential comment?

The president says she has become the nickname for all that galamsey represents.

A respected security analyst, Prof Kwesi Aning accuses her of being a mole sent to destroy the Ghanaian cocoa sector.

All the same, Aisha Huang, actually, En Huang, the Chinese national at the heart of what has become a watershed moment of the government’s illegal mining fight, must be woman of substance.

The opinion-splitting Asian woman heads for court on Wednesday, September 14 in a trial expected to receive heavy media coverage and almost equal publicEfrenzy.

If the news around En Ruixia Aisha Huang and her re-arrest is anything to go by, it is a subtle verdict on the almost half a decade fight against galamsey.

Strangely, in a country where the police service is quick to release images and statements on suspects, and their personnel leak images of even internal memos, one wonders how these personnel have by some magic wand become all professional and the Service itself not interested in letting us know how the 36-year-old En Huang looks like now; because mind you, the images of Aisha Huang that are being splashed all over the media space are those taken of her in 2018, almost 6 years go.

One wonders why five Chinese nationals also arrested just a few days after the news of Aisha Huang’s arrest make it into the media space yet Aisha’s images are still being kept like a national secret.

That perhaps no one knows for sure if she was ‘deported’ makes for interesting read or listening whichever you got the news.

The president says he is not sure whether she was really deported, a day after the Ranking Member the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, says she was deported without due process.

When she was first picked up in 2017 at age 31, she had allegedly already masterminded her own release from law enforcement.

Though not many are happy with Aisha Huang’s disregard for the laws of the land and would want to see her punished and set as an example, there cannot be more foreigners in galamsey than Ghanaian citizens.

Citizens who looked on while Aisha Huang returned, acquired national documents and worked in the country for months until her own compatriots snitched on her.

The public attention Aisha Huang’s case is receiving could well die should the courts allow the wheels of justice to grind slower than the court of public opinions wises; it is worth noting the media clamour for the galamsey fight campaign suffered a similar fate.

En Ruixia Aisha Huang’s case perhaps holds the proverbial last straw that breaks the back of the galamsey fight or provide a refreshed drive for a nation and its people determined to protect its natural resources for its future generations.

By Cyril Dogbe

The writer is a journalist with Media General