PERISCOPE DEPTH (02/02/2020)
…With Our Publisher
Last week, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) reported that the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi, is gradually losing the fight against poor sanitation as filth has engulfed almost every corner of the Central Business District of the Metropolis.
The agency reported that piles of refuse have become a common sight at the Kejetia, Dr. Mensah, Central Market and some parts of Adum.
The report went on that the more disturbing picture is the fact that several food vendors have invaded spots and doing business, amidst stench discharged from the insanitary conditions.
Mr Samuel Pyne, the Metropolitan Chief Executive, recently led a team from the metro sanitation department and some traders to embark on a massive clean-up exercise in the central business district.
Mr Pyne speaking during the exercise urged the traders to desist from indiscriminate dumping of refuse and rather, keep their surroundings clean.
This has however, fallen on deaf ears since the traders had not only taken over the pedestrian walkways, but also the pavements and shoulders of the road for brisk business.
Though Mr Pyne had promised to institute stringent measures to ensure that the central business district was clean at all times, residents are yet to see the implementation of the measures.
When I read the piece, the first thing that came to mind was that the measures being adopted by Mr. Pyne were strikingly similar to the measures being adopted by Regional Minister Mr. Henry Quartey to combat similar concerns in Greater Accra. Ipso facto, both gentlemen were adopting ad hoc measures to combat intractable, perennial problems. As soon as the measures are taken away, the problems would be back with vengeance. An illustration of this concept is the attempt to chase petty traders from the Accra Central Business District. For weeks, we spent money trying to get them out of the Central Business Ditrict of Accra. Now they are back with a vengeance. The solution that was proposed, was obviously never going to work.
Do not get me wrong; I am not criticizing Mr. Quartey, or Mr. Pyne. They have been caught up in a bigger cultural problem we have as a country. That is our great ability to accept the abnormal, as normal. Our nation is not working, no matter how hard we tell ourselves otherwise. The problem transcends governments, and I believe that the time has come for us to look deep within ourselves to find out if we can change at our most basic levels, that is change our very nature and response to stimuli.
In a conversation with a medical doctor at 37 Military Hospital some years back, he made a statement that has continued to stay with me. He said that certain ailments that human beings suffer regularly, are not ailments or sicknesses properly so-called, but are signs of an inner infection. He said that piles (hemorrhoids), eczema, certain boils and carbuncles and many afflictions of the skin are not in themselves sicknesses or diseases, but rather signs of infections of the blood. Treat the infection of the blood, and their outward manifestation in terms of piles (hemorrhoids), eczema, certain boils and carbuncles would disappear.
I recall this, because many of our afflictions as a nation, are afflictions of the blood. Their outward manifestation of this infection of the blood of our nation, this infection of the national blood, are many. We do not need to treat these manifestations on an individual basis. Rather, we need to tackle the inner infection of the blood of our nation, and then their manifestations would disappear.
What are some of these manifestations of an inner sickness afflicting our nation? They are many, and legion. I would name several;
They are ambulance personnel claiming there is no fuel, and demanding money for fuel, whilst a sick person needing urgent medical care at a hospital, is waiting for transportation.
Did I say an ambulance? A sign that your nation is not working, is when you see a taxi containing a sick person forcing its way with a horn through traffic to get to a hospital. Meanwhile, at the same time, an ambulance is being used to ferry a corpse. Abnormality.
Another sign that your nation is not working, that it has an inner infection of the blood, is when vehicles refuse to allow ambulances to get through, even when sirens are blaring.
Your nation is not working when you see District, Municipal and District Chief Executives zooming around in luxurious four-wheel drive vehicles, when all the highways are clogged with weeds, potholes and filth.
Another sign your nation is not working, is when, ECG officials demand money to repair faults on their system. The nation is not working.
Another sign your nation is not working, is when you are told at a hospital, when a patient has an emergency, that there are no beds. No beds? Put the damn patient on a table and stabilize him or her.
A nation is not working when family members are sent in panic to buy dozens of useless drugs for their relatives who face medical crisis, when the hospital should have had stocks of the medicine available and able to be dispensed readily for the patient.
A nation has a sickness of the blood when dangerous explosives are transported by road with all cautionary measures missing. That is a nation that is not working.
A nation is not working when leading citizens run into medical crisis and there are no emergency services to call upon.
A nation is not working when all leading citizens feel more comfortable accessing medical care in other countries, other than their own.
A nation is not working when a police officer stops you and from every indication, seeks to extort money from you, with the threat of the very law he is flaunting with impunity. And at this point, let me congratulate the police authorities of our country. I recently went to the MTTU Office at the Airport Police Station and could not recognize the place. New paint, smartly dressed and professional officers who actually granted bail to a citizen without demanding a bribe, and were actually helpful with information! Ghana will make it yet, I thought.
A nation is not working when a very sick man is told to go back home and await test results to be brought back in two weeks, and dies in a taxi on the way back home. That is a nation that is not working.
When a nation is not working, when its governance systems have broken down, the signs are found in simple things like those listed above. They are not found in great acts of larceny (even though we have our share of those) but in the simple boils and eczema and carbuncles.
And like their cure, we would only see the nation working, when we begin to see signs of leadership that things in terms of long-term, systemic change, and not short-term political objectives.
(This article was first published in the Daily Searchlight of 2nd February, 2022, and sold on newsstands in Ghana and online and across the world on www.ghananewsstand.com).
