Opoku Gakpo Writes: Accra’s flood and fire disaster-Our lack of value for human life ‘sucks’

It started off as one of those wet, rainy, cold evenings that would usually usher in an exciting and chilly, good-sleep inspiring night. But that was not meant to be. As the rain entered its third hour around 7:30 pm, it became palpably clear that the city was headed for trouble. Roads were flooded, drains were overflowing, and the rain water had turned Accra into a deep-brown sea. Well, I was in the office with Alex, Araba, Fiifi, Naa Dedey, and Nhyira all night; picking calls from distressed persons on Joy FM, combing through harrowing images that were coming in through whatsup in disbelief, imagining the troubles that had befallen a lot of families out there, and praying things don’t get out of hand.

Just when the rain subsided and everyone thought a recovery was in sight, Elton called in to report how an explosion at a fuel station at Circle had swept red-hot fire over flood waters that had risen to the neck level of men, burning human bodies and everything else it came across.
Mistakes do happen, professionally built ships do sink, well built castles do collapse, the most expensive planes sometimes crash without caution, and even the lovely mother Earth occasionally opens up and swallows people. But no one can convince me that a costly disaster like what ‘Black Wednesday’s’ fire and floods caused were not preventable, or were not the result of one form of human assistance/negligence or the other.
Certainly, if there was only fire without flood, the human cost would have been less. And if there was only a flood without fire, I’m sure the death toll would have been even far lower. But we are mourning today because we have chocked our gutters with filth; our government has shirked its responsibility to construct enough drains for rain waters to flow; people have built houses, churches and schools in water ways; and for all you know, just maybe, a worker was just not diligent enough with his job at the fuel station; or probably, one guy who draws his monthly salary from the tax you and I pay was sleeping on his assignment to ensure safety at the fuel pumps.
Now, with the death toll hitting 150 plus and still counting, you can’t help but question why as a people; we appear to place so little a value on human life. Our reckless disregard for human life ‘sucks.’ Certainly, the bearers of ultimate responsibility for this trouble we’ve all been put through never imagined this would be the consequence of their actions or inactions. If they knew, I’m sure they would have done the right thing. However, they obviously knew they were doing the wrong thing and their conscience should have discouraged them from doing so, but they probably refused to listen.
Now, homes have been destroyed, human lives lost, hearts broken, skins charred, businesses collapsed, and expensive vehicles and other property submerged. On Thursday, the wife of that taxi driver woke up a widow, his children are now orphans; that guy who has toiled all his life to build a family house is now homeless and has to beg for a place to sleep and food to eat; that beautiful girl now has half of her skin burnt, destroying her pretty face beyond repair; and that business woman has to start life all over from scratch because her shop was either charred in the fire, or swept away by the floods.
Obviously, the fact that these “not so natural” disasters keep recurring year after year and month after month is unacceptable. The last time fire at a fuel station cost us lives was only about two months ago at Dansoman, and the last time floods cost us lives in Accra was just last year. We were promised it won’t happen again, but that was a bad, bad joke. Stories of these disasters have been told since Gold Coast gained independence from Britain and was re-christened Ghana. We have since migrated from an under developed/developing country to a middle class nation; our Head of State has been handed enhanced power and is no longer Prime Minister but President; tyranny and military rule has given way to democracy; our Gross Domestic Product has grown in leaps and bounds; our population has exploded; there are more engineers in this country today than ever; and the size of our government is bigger today and filled with more graduates than ever in our history.
However, it’s all being like running on a treadmill - that machine in the gym on which you keep running but your location remains stagnant. We are burning a lot of energy but we are making no progress; there is a lot of activity happening in this country but nothing is moving; we’ve been ‘knighted’ and handed all the sweet international accolades our friends in the West would not confer even on themselves, but unfortunately, we are still where we are. No one is thinking outside the box, so our problems never get solved. We declare days of mourning and grieve like we want to follow the departed to the grave but nothing changes when the flood waters recede and the deceased are buried. We go back to business as usual.
So we are here again today, and the cycle continues. Just another needless loss of lives that is dampening undeserved sorrow on families. The ‘as easy as ABCD’ manner in which about 200 lives have been lost just doesn’t add up… lives swept away as simply as blowing off candle light is unimaginable.
Would sacking one government official or the other bring back any of the lost lives or correct disfigured faces? Well, the answer is no. But for all you know, it may get others to sit up to their responsibilities. I don’t know and I would rather not go there.
However, this disaster provides a good opportunity for reflection. Government officials should ask themselves the hard questions on what we have been doing wrong, and what we are not doing. They should ask themselves where their priorities lie - on human life or the many other things that really don’t matter. Citizens all have roles to play in dealing with these, but government bears the ultimate responsibility whether it likes it or not.
The claim is that there are more than enough suggestions, proposals and documentation that spells out clearly how these problems of flood and fuel station fires can be dealt with – we just have to enforce the laws, period!!! But as the old saying goes, we cannot solve the problems we face with the same level of thinking that created it. The nation has been hit by what appears to be the single largest cause of needless loss of human lives in our history. It should not be business as usual. The bit about dealing with the fire outbreaks at fuel stations can be resolved by just enforcing the law and taking adequate precaution, but I believe the way out would be for government to set up a committee of engineers who are familiar with Accra’s drainage problem, to investigate and make concrete suggestions on how to deal with this problem once and for all. And this committee must be set up with a prior sworn commitment on the part of the president to implement its recommendations to the latter.
To those we’ve lost, we pray that God keeps your soul. To the families of those victims, we are saddened too by your loss, we grieve with you in your pain, we are distraught by the sadness that has filled your hearts, and we pray Heaven strengthens you in these difficult times. To the injured persons and those whose properties have been destroyed, we pray for your speedy recovery, in hope that our government will stand by you and help you get back on your feet as soon as possible.
All citizens will play our individual roles in helping victims of the disaster on what would be a long road to recovery. But government must ensure that never again in the history of this country should we see a recurrence of this. May God be our helper.
By Joseph Opoku Gakpo
www.josephopokugakpo.wordpress.com