BY Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
July 6, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

In the wake of the long-delayed demolition exercise that hit Old Fadama, Deputy Parliamentary Minority Leader Dominic Nitiwul was widely reported to have fumed that unauthorized structures were being demolished in that slummy metropolitan neighborhood because the residents were too "weak and vulnerable" to resist it (See "Sodom And Gomorrah: Local Gov't Minister Summoned To Parliament" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/23/15). No such characterization could be more politically motivated. The fact of the matter is that Old Fadama, notoriously called Sodom And Gomorrah, is a rundown part of our nation's capital that ought not to have been allowed to be settled.

The vicinity is an eyesore and a prime breeding ground for deadly diseases like Dengue Fever, Cholera and Ebola. It is also a den for quality-of-life vices such as prostitution and mugging or pick-pocketting. Where Mr. Nitiwul appears to be playing dangerous politics with the salutary clean-up exercise initiated by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), regards the fact that Old Fadama is heavily populated by Ghanaians of northern descent and/or birth. Mr. Nitiwul is the New Patriotic Party's Member of Parliament for Bimbilla, which is located in the Northern Region. The Deputy Parliamentary Minority Leader has yet to explain why he believes the massive demolition of unauthorized and sub-standard housing structures was undertaken by the AMA purely on the basis of the sociopolitical vulnerability of the squatters in the area.

We need to also quickly point out that the demolition exercise in Old Fadama comes in the wake of the June 3-4 flood and fire disaster that reportedly killed more than 200 people. Many of the equally humongous number of those who were injured by that fatal incident continue to receive treatment at the various health facilities dotted across the Accra metropolis. In the main, the long overdue demolition exercise is aimed at removing unauthorized and sub-standard residential facilities built in waterways, which have been cited as the primary cause of seasonal flooding of the nation's capital. Sodom And Gomorrah is only one of several slummy townships felled by the AMA-sponsored demolition squad. The exercise began in the Achimota suburb of Accra, and was not met with the sort of outcry registered at Old Fadama.

Deputy Local Government and Rural Development Minister Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, has also not helped matters. When he has not been busy cynically lamenting that the demolition exercise would cost the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) the 2016 general election, he has been vigorously and vacuously impugning the legality of the entire demolition exercise. In the latest of such foolery, Mr. Vanderpuye accused the Accra Mayor of having flouted an agreement over proposed areas of Sodom And Gomorrah to be demolished (See "AMA Went Beyond Proposed Areas For Demolition - Nii Lantey" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/23/15).

We know that Mr. Vanderpuye, the Local Government Minister, is playing dangerous political games with the demolition exercise because at the same time that he virulently accuses Mayor Okoh Vanderpuije - no known relation of Mr. Vanderpuye's - of having callously flouted proposed demarcations, Mr. Vanderpuye also deviously defends the AMA demolition squad for inadvertently going beyond the earmarked boundaries of the demolition exercise because "the machines used for the demolition could not be manipulated to meet the 50-meter [distance from the banks of the Odaw River] promised" the residents, who had been accused of illegally littering the creek, thus leading to the clogging of the Odaw River and the deadly seasonal flooding of Central Accra.

It hasn't also helped that House Speaker Edward Doe Adjaho has also pretended to have been living in outerspace all this apocalyptic while. For example, following Mr. Nitiwul's rather cynical gripe, Speaker Adjaho fired off an official memorandum to the substantive Local Government Minister, Mr. Collins Dauda, asking the latter to come to the floor of the House to explain why the demolition exercise was launched, to begin with. About the only genuine complaint regarding the slum-demolition exercise, regards the fact that advance emergency shelter arrangements do not appear to have factored into the plan of the Accra Mayor's.

At any rate, Mayor Vanderpuije ought not be expected to respect the people over whom he seems to reign like an absolute monarch. He was not elected by the people. He was merely appointed to the job at the pleasure of President John Dramani Mahama. This is one of the legion banes of Ghanaian democracy.

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