A recent outbreak of Cholera in the Accra metropolis has thrown into sharp relief the issue of sanitation, one significant issue which quite frankly Ghanaians take for granted.

The outbreak has so far claimed the lives of five people, with hundreds more reporting to health facilities with the condition. The issue has become so bad that the La General Hospital was forced to shut down all other operations to tend only to the sheer number of cholera patients.

Cholera is a bacterial infection that is transmitted through the faecal matter of an infected person. It thrives in unsanitary conditions and causes severe diarrhoea which if not treated can be quite fatal, as it often leads to severe dehydration due to the frequent passing of stool.

Now to the question of the epidemic, and the wonder here, sadly, should be that there hasn’t been more cases of the outbreak in the past, considering that Accra is a city that resides in permanent filth. For the capital city of Ghana, a short walk through the central business district and you would wonder how and why it was ever bestowed with that status in the first place.

But the reason for this piece is to point out another failing of us as a people, which is the tendency to rely on government for even the most rudimentary things; hence the title. The aforementioned dirty places in the heart of the city serve as the busiest trading district in the entire country, yet business is conducted in the filth every, single, day. People have shops right over open dirty gutters, and no one bothers to do anything because it is believed to be the responsibility of the government.

And believe me, this is not an exaggeration. I have literally heard people saying that a gutter, running in front of their house, choked with filth, should be cleaned by the government. It is the ‘Aban’ who is responsible for maintaining public properties, so the gutter as a public property should be cleaned by the government.

Worst of all is that we have become used to the filth, and often see it as little more than a nuisance. People sell food over open gutters, with the stench just seen as little more than an afterthought.

There is no denying the government has a big part to play in maintaining sanitation for the people, and there is a bigger failing on the part of government on this issue; but I see no reason why we as individuals cannot take the smallest steps to maintain hygiene within our own little corner of the country.

After all, the basest unit of the government is the people, and if this failing cannot be dealt with on an individual level, is it any wonder it is an institutional failure as well?

It is a shame cholera is taking lives in this day and age, and the living conditions of parts of the city are extremely conducive to its spread, which is why it is spreading on such a large scale.

But the issue of poor sanitation cannot be handled with our current attitudes, and it is by a concerted effort of both government and the people that we can ever hope to have a clean city worthy of its status.