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A TALE OF MY CITY
Posted by Kwaku Sakyi-Addo (admin) on Jun 03 2008
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Accra frightens me. Its future scares me even more. 

Our capital is growing. It’s expanding, and very fast too. But that’s not the problem. Because it means that lots of money is being pumped into the city. And it’s pretty obvious. The problem is that this growth is without direction. It has no symmetry. No order. No shepherding.

 

New, fancy homes are sprouting everywhere like weeds in a very rainy season. 

But how can you invest in a 300,000-dollar home, and watch as a garbage dump rises to your left, a raucous drinking bar raises the volume to your right; behind, a dingy hotel with adulterous clients who check in with a ‘short-time’ agenda; and in front, a busy dirt road lined with container shops offering crap from China. And that’s your front-porch view. Plus it’s in the path of arriving airplanes flying so close to your roof you recognised your niece through the plane’s window when last she was returning from London! 

 

Soon Spintex Road will become ungovernable, like Abeka La Paz. Abeka has evolved into an autonomous republic with its own grimy, maddening, cacophonous ethos. The main road which threads wearily through this urban wilderness is supposed to be part of the trans-west African highway! I can’t even laugh!

 

Many years ago, when you lived at Macarthy Hill you were, as the young people say, “all that.” Today, the spatial insanity that affects the suburbs below has crept up the Hill and contaminated its old-money marque.

 

Further west, the suburbs and the structures so defy any measure of aesthetics or order, they must have been designed by failed trainee barbers wearing blindfolds. The only decent home which was once ringed elegantly by royal palm trees has been encircled round the throat and overcome by more architectural horror and environmental folly.

 

Cantonment Road dares to be called Oxford Street after the famous shop-lined lane in London. It has lots of fancy shops and eateries, banks and ATMs, Internet cafes and bars. But the open drains that hem the tarmac offer a sordid stew of raw sewage, dogs’ rear-end deposits and fresh fish entrails from itinerant mongers. Dissonance is then defined when a Merc 500 SE glides by.

 

That, indeed, is the irony of Accra today. It’s a wealthy city streaming steadily astray. Its horrendous traffic is heading off a cliff. We build six-lane streets to move the traffic along, but then we throw a pedestrian crossing smack in the middle so that it halts the flow. 

 

We asphalt a lane at half a million dollars per kilometre, and hand it over for the hawking of rotting tomatoes. That has to be the most expensive trading space in the world! Developers fence off lands earmarked for roads whilst we stand idly by.

 

The Mayor is well-intentioned, but he’s held back by politicians who think of impending elections but not of future generations. The politicians reckon that if they stop illegal hawking they’ll lose street cred. Still, they lost Odododiodoo. 

 

We must elect our own mayors so they’ll answer to The People. We must elect our own mayors so we can release their Manhood from the clenched stronghold of short-sighted decision-makers. 

 

The time to act is Now. Any further excuses and this city’s innocence, like that of Lagos, will be gone forever. 

 

The time to act is Now. Or our children will one day point to our cities – and to All of Us – with Their Left Hand and tell us, deservedly to the face, what a generation of shameless and greedy idiots We have been!

 

PS. You can keep this in a time capsule.

Last changed: Jun 03 2008 at 10:26 AM

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Comments

neneazu	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:31 AM
I find this artilce most succint. This is especially so where the writer talk s about electing our mayor. what could be so nice if the mayor of accra, kumasi or tamale or still sekondi/tardi, as we call it, is elected into office with his team and programmes and pojects? of course including how he or she intends to do it. lets think again, otherwise posterity will definitely blot us out of their minds. I am not too old but i have argued often that accra has not changed at all since 1957. Just imagine how did the ringroad looked like 40 years ago, or the road from circle into new town, bubuashi, kaneshie ... etc need i say more?
i like this essay	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:32 AM
wat u have just put across is very true. there is no iota of doubt that in some years to come i would look back at this government and lament for their lack of vision and foresight. they complained bitterly about the bad administrative procedures of the preceding government but what have they done to rectify that situation. Accra is a dump site. i hope to change that when i grow up.
no iota of doubt ( GABRIEL )	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:33 AM
wat u have just put across is very true. there is no iota of doubt that in some years to come i would look back at this government and lament for their lack of vision and foresight. they complained bitterly about the bad administrative procedures of the preceding government but what have they done to rectify that situation. Accra is a dump site. i hope to change that when i grow up.
Good job	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:33 AM
Good job, Kwaku. Keep writing especially for us diaspora Ghanaians.
SHAMELESS AND GREEDY IDIOTS	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:34 AM
A GENERATION OF SHAMELESS AND GREEDY IDIOTS INDEED... WE ALL CARE ABOUT TODAY AND LEAVE TOMMOROW TO FEND FOR ITSELF... ARE THOSE LIVING AT SPINTEX GOING TO WAKE UP ONE DAY TO PROTEST ABOUT AERO-POLLUTION? THIS WRITER REALLY HIT THE NAIL ON ITS HEAD.. YOU ARE A VISIONARY! BRAVO!
A Tale of My City	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:35 AM
Bravo, Kwaku. I live at Tema & pay for my garbage to be cleared by a private company. They used to do this twice a week but occassionally, it slipped to once a week. Recently, for two weeks, no clearance. That is the way things degenerate gradually into disrepair.
Ungovernable. Thats the word	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:35 AM
Oh boy!! you can write. Your choice of words are always picked by my ''antennae'' as pictures. I told you in the 90's that your Animal Farm article alone costs more than the Chronicle itself (Sorry Nana. My problem is that tenant in your throat. Cough him out big time and eject him for good. Somebody grab Accra by the shoulder. She is going wayward indeed.
subtle writer	By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Jun 03 2008 at 10:36 AM
what more can i say.i want to believe you kept records of all your writtings.pls post them or direct us where we can find them.Not only are they very hilarious, they are very educative. I mean accra needs sherperding.pls keep it up.you are powerful tool for society.you do it in your own small way. maximum respect.alfred.
Objective Piece	By Unknown on May 06 2010 at 9:01 AM
Kwaku should be made president, but then he is too honest and frank to win an election; not even a mayoral election. Our politicians simply close their eyes to the chaos around us and instead focus on satisfying their financiers. Well done Kwaku. Do not give up. Let us see more of such thought provoking articles.

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