ACCRA: The city that kills

The smallest but most populated city in Ghana. Governments upon governments have consciously failed to accelerate the development of other cities because they perceive Accra as Ghana, and Ghana as Accra.

Meanwhile, life in Accra is a great struggle for both the young and old. It is that which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. To the

Read full articleordinary Ghanaian, Accra is just an overhyped city.

Accommodation issues alone are wringing out death in the living. Even getting a single room to rent doesn’t come easily. When you finally get one, you’d have to now struggle with the basic facilities of the room.

A normal room comes without a washroom. It’s true that one’s money shows one’s choice. However, telling a graduate who just got employed, or the ordinary man who’s still struggling on the street to pay close to 350-600 cedi a month before he could enjoy the basic facilities rooms are supposed to come with isn’t the best.

Rent control appears paralyzed in discharging their duties. Landladies are charging exorbitantly for their rooms. And on top of that, they don’t take six months' advance payment. It’s always two years, and a considerable one year. That’s if the tenant had occupied the room for two years and it’s time for renewal. Well, it is not as if that comes with ease; landladies would hurl insults at their tenants before acquiescing to a year's advance payment.

The same country, yet single rooms are being offered for rent at 40 cedis in the other regions. This isn’t to suggest that the same rate must be charged in Accra. But when a single room with no washroom is charged 150 cedis in Accra and the same is charged 40 cedis in other regions, the ordinary Ghanaian residing in Accra would wish he had died.

Traffic jam in Accra causes hypertension. Everywhere is choked. From Accra to Koforidua (Eastern region) is mostly a 1 hour 30 minutes drive on a normal day. This same hour could be spent just to traverse from Spintex to Accra Mall, regardless of one setting off (6 A.M.,) in the morning. When returning from work to home is even a bigger mess!

It beseems the state is yet to know how important the free flow of vehicles is. The traffic jam is causing citizens. Students miss some precious hours of school. Businessmen turning up late at meetings etc.

Transportation fares are another trouble. For example, when there’s a two (2) cedi increment in fuel, commercial drivers would heartlessly increase their fare by one (1) cedi per head. So they pay two cedi difference anytime they buy fuel, while passengers pay one cedi increment at every distance they cover. Who loses the more!?

The same distance costs a passenger one (1) cedi in Kumasi (Ashanti Region), but a passenger would pay 2.50 cedi in Accra. The drivers drive anyhow too. They give priority to their final destination to human life.

When it comes to foodstuffs Accra is the worse. Most of the arable lands which were then used for food cultivation have all been turned into estate properties, especially in an environment like Tse-Addo.

Fifteen years ago we used to go for catfish and crab hunting at Tse-Addo, today if you dare you’d catch only ants. All the small rivers and streams are being filled up for construction. The maize, tomatoes, and its tasty okra productions had all reduced drastically.

And because of the absence of these foodstuffs in Accra, some foodstuff vendors have taken advantage of the situation. Three weeks ago we bought five hands of bananas for ten cedis at Sekyere which, on every hand, there were sixteen to eighteen fingers of bananas.

In Accra, a hand of banana is sold at ten cedis or more depending on the location. They’re not even fresh. This scenario permeates all other foodstuffs. They’re expensive but hardly fresh!

A bottle of palm oil in Sekyere has a sweet taste and smell. Its price is relatively cheaper as compared to what they sell in Accra. No wonder we are battling all kinds of diseases here.

Land litigation is a headache. Though this isn’t Accra’s monopoly, it’s a fact that percentage-wise, it happens in Accra more than any other city. Reason is that nobody wants to go beyond Accra. And why should they go beyond Accra since everything is being forced to take place here?

A citizen would go through all this toil and moil and would have to buy a plot of land quoted in a foreign currency (dollar), which is oftentimes already sold to other people. Then the litigations get started. If the buyer isn’t connected to the big men, the land would be taken from him and he loses the huge investment made. Those who aren’t lucky would have to tussle with land guards. Their lives become that of fowls in the end.

Unemployment is putting people on a death roll. No availability of work. The advocacy is that the youth should go into agriculture, maybe they don’t mean those in Accra. But if that is so, where is the available land!? Or should those living in La, Osu, or Nima journey to Nsawam for farming activities? Who would even pay for the transportation?

Therefore, hooliganism is on the rise. Graduates are struggling. The unskilled labours are ‘not seeing top’. Those who settle on construction works, do so without any assurance and insurance in the future. Employers don’t pay their social security. And they also fail to do it. So, they retire poorly. And thus the cycle continues — poverty abounds!

That is the life Accra offers: it’s largely unexplainable and densely unpredictable. If you fail to eat, you’d be eaten. So you either kill or be killed. And when you choose to shut up and rest in your small corner then the government takes a toll on you.

What at all is Accra, if not a place which makes the beauty ugly, the optimist, a pessimistic, and the brave, a coward!