By Solomon Mensah
 |
| Nkrumah Circle interchange under construction |
After
we had closed from lectures, a friend sat me and other friends down over some
bottles of drinks.
Don’t
hold your breath, I took a bottle of Malta Guinness! This was Saturday, February 27,
2016.
Our
gathering was very successful. We discussed almost every trending issue concerning
Ghana – from the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards disqualifying Shatta Wale from its
2016 edition to President Mahama’s 2016 State of the Nation Address.
There
at the Ghana Institute of Journalism’s cafeteria were five passionate young men
poised to see Ghana rise. We all had at least one concern about the nation that
we wished changed for the better.
My
concern had to do with the hawkers still taking over the Kwame Nkrumah Circle
even when the construction of the interchange is ongoing.
True
to my Nkrumah Circle worry, at 7:53 pm on the very day I complained to my
friends, I watched a trailer when I got to Circle. The trailer, rather a
horrifying tale starred a young thief who whisked a lady’s phone.
The
victim, sitting at the front seat of a four-wheel drive, held her phone in her
hands as a pupil does to an excellent terminal report in the air. She was
presumably on WhatsApp.
I
saw the young man approaching the said car. Within a split of a second, the
thief had annex ‘his’ phone from the lady, turned, doubled his steps while the
lady shouted “thief, thief!”
The
thief waned into the thick crowd. Just like that. Although that was my first
time witnessing a theft case at Nkrumah Circle, I have heard gory accounts told
by many other victims.
Three
years ago, a lady friend cried her heart out when she realized in a bus that
her laptop had been stolen. While jostling for a bus at the Nkrumah Circle,
after work, the cunning and unsuspecting thieves cut-open her bag on her blind
side and took away the laptop.
If
we were to call on the general public to render an account on their Nkrumah
Circle experience, I am sure it will take the father of history, Herodotus, to
document such accounts.
But
thievery is not the only problem at Nkrumah Circle. What annoys the most is the
hawkers taking over the streets as a market place. If you mean to walk through
this part of Accra and you do not have the heart of a class one teacher, then
be prepared to fight always.
“Yes,
boss. Hello madam …” the phone-in-hand sellers would beckon. As if that is not
enough, when you decide not to give them attention, they hold you by whichever
part of your body they get hold to.
These
hawkers are the very reason for which the Odawna Pedestrian Shopping Mall was
built. Once a reporter with The Finder Newspaper, I did a story on the shopping
mall where the head-trader of the place told me that the few traders who had
occupied the Mall may go back to the streets.
His
explanation was so simple and reasonable that bombarding him with questions, I
thought, was unnecessary. “My son [the head-trader addressed me], we were on
the streets but were convinced to occupy this place. The idea was that (we) all
the traders will move to these shops so the market stays here. But, the
authorities could not enforce the other traders to come here. They are on the
streets selling and they are having all the sales.”
Indeed,
why would I begrudge the head-trader when we only make cacophony of noises
about policies and bylaws for two weeks and then go back to sleep? When after a
hoax made Ghanaians wake up at dawn, stood on football fields with many saying
their last prayer because an earthquake was about striking us, we made bylaws.
That
bylaw said that Ghanaians must register their SIM cards to make it easy to
arrest anyone who peddled falsehood using his or her phone. This law worked but
only for two weeks. Now, SIM card vendors sell registered cards using either
their own identification cards or that of unsuspecting innocent persons.
As
it stands, one can easily buy a SIM card today, commit a heinous crime with it and
cause the police to arrest an innocent man whose ID card a SIM vendor may have
used to register the culprit’s new phone number.
However,
since our elders say that a frog does not jump backwards, I thought our leaders
have learnt their lessons well. But a year and some months into the Nkrumah
Circle interchange makes me understand that the average black politician thinks
about the next election and not the next generation.
In
the first place, it is not a coincidence that the government of the day timed
the construction of the interchange for its completion to meet Election 2016.
This, however, is pardonable. But I find it sickening that the contractor of
the interchange having to move the hawkers to one side then to another in order
to get the interchange constructed.
Since
2014 that I acquired a passport, I have not yet travelled beyond the borders of
Ghana. Frankly, I have never seen a plane on a tarmac except the ones that fly
above my head. That notwithstanding, I can say without fear of contradiction
that nowhere in Europe or America would people sell right under a constructed
interchange.
A
Zimbabwean proverb teaches that an ox hide must be folded to a shape one wants
while it is still fresh. Was this not the right time to have kicked off the
hawkers at Nkrumah Circle and forced them to stick to selling at the Odawna
shopping mall and at other markets?
We
could not sack them before the construction. Will we be able to do so after the
interchange has been constructed considering the fact that Election 2016 is
just few months away? Certainly, the fear of losing the hawkers’ votes will not
make that ‘a prudent political decision.’
In
his book “Dark Days In Ghana,” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah cited a letter a white man by
Name Richard Wright wrote him.
“I
say to you publicly and frankly: The burden of suffering that must be borne, impose
it upon one generation! … Be merciful by being stern!” said Mr. Wright.
I
look up to a president, who would impose the burden of suffering in kicking off
these hawkers from our streets on one generation. A president who will not
listen to the mantra ‘this is where we get our daily bread.’ A president who
would sacrifice winning the next election to winning the good of the larger
society. A president who will be merciful by being stern.
Until
then, Nkrumah Circle may have all the good looks with its monumental facelift and upgrade but a decorated monkey will still be a monkey.
The
writer is a journalist and a cultural activist.
Twitter:
@Aniwaba
Instagram:
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