There’s a lot of tragedy to go around this morning, terrible news that should make any Ghanaian weak at the knees. And we have to mourn, indeed, but most of all we have to call out our leaders who have massively failed us and have led us down this path.
Because we classify the huge rainy season in Ghana as June/July, today is fourth June. Imagine if the pattern of most years would follow; that means the devastation we would have to deal with by the end of July would be unimaginable- so let’s all rather hope it does not follow.
But I digress, despite everything that has happened, the fire, floods, that all illustrate what we know most about the lethargy of so-called leaders in Ghana, it is my own little experience last night I would take to illustrate my point.
Now Labadi did not flood to a 10th of the degree as most flood prone areas, but where the flooding occurred is what concisely illustrated our march as a people towards certain doom.
By an incredible twist of fate I’ll not go into, I did not use my normal route to the house last night. I rather found myself at 37, and took that road that runs by Burma Camp and then Palm Wine to T-Junction before joining the main Teshie Nungua to Accra road. Those familiar with Accra geography would easily know this road.
They’ll also know that quite recently a huge renovation was carried out to expand the road, from T-Junction all the way to the Burma Camp area. It’s virtually a new road, and I remember the amount of demolition of nearby structures they had to do to get a wide enough space to construct the dual road they wanted.
And I remember feeling very apprehensive about it, because I’ve stayed around Labadi most of my life and I always remembered how skinny that road was and the lack of space around it for expansion. But they somehow did it, and I never placed my finger on what was so wrong with it until last night when I had to wade through a river to get to my house.
There’s no sizeable gutter by the road to carry water away. There are just small ones that survived the expansion, but nothing big enough to survive a torrent like yesterdays. There was so little surrounding land for their expansion, they had to squeeze the road in and left no room for waterways. That means after an hour of downpour such as we had yesterday (actually several hours), there’s nothing to cart away the water but the ROAD itself!
So a new road, in the capital, built just for the aesthetics but no fore planning involved. I assume someone designed the project, and sent it somewhere for approval, and somehow such an obviously flawed design was given approval, and we now have a very beautiful, expensive road that yesterday almost became a death trap.
I alighted at Palm wine junction yesterday, and it took me a couple hours in the rain before I mustered courage to cross that man made river that our beautiful new road had become. This is a road that is fairly recent, so we see that the negligence and the apathy that leads to unnecessary loss of life during such seasons runs through the system; yesterday, today, and forever.
I got home around 11, drenched, but intact. A lot of people yesterday did not, and the fault for that lies squarely at whichever incompetent sods run this city of ours. I’m telling you they’d be in the news soon, make all the right kind of noises, and we’ll get through this season and the status quo would continue, unabated.
There are natural disasters you cannot control; but most of our problems are manmade- and only the right kind of leaders with the requisite political will would get us out of this slog we’re stuck in. And Oko Vanderpuye and John Mahama and their like-I’m sorry but they’re not those kinds of leaders.
Go to BrutallyUncensored.Com to see shocking videos and photos of the Accra flood…
Oh our motherland till when?
In any civilized country this incident will galvanize the people to demand change and fix this perennial problem. People will come together to find solutions to this flooding. But this is Ghana. It will be reduced to partisan politics and swept under the rug. And next year another group of Ghanaian will die because of the flooding. I am certain the churches will blame this on the devil. As if the devil is the one shitting and dumping refuse in the waterways. Ignorant Ghanaians will believe them and eat it up. And the community spirit required to fix this catastrophe will be deflated.
Sometimes I am forced to be cynical and attribute this to Darwinian process of natural selection. When animals, of which we are part of, refuse to think and become brainless automatons they deserve to be cleansed. Looking around nature there are so many example of lesser animals doing much better than what Ghanaians do at home. After floods or torrential rains some rebuild and improve their environments. So why can’t Ghanaians do that? It is because they are too busy asking god to solve their problems rather that take charge.