Opinions of Saturday, 18 April 2020

Columnist: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Trust me, Accra will no longer be slummified

Member of Parliament for Sagnarigu, A.B.A. Fuseini Member of Parliament for Sagnarigu, A.B.A. Fuseini

Left to kleptocratic loudmouthed opposition parliamentarians like the National Democratic Congress’ representative for Sagnarigu, in the Northern Region, for example, all the major cities in the country, in particular the Greater-Accra Metropolitan Area, would be indecently reduced to cholera-prone slums. This is why Mr. ABA Fuseini virulently lit into the salutary demolition of some sub-standard residential structures in Ghana’s capital by the ministries of Local Government and Rural Development, and Works and Housing, respectively, as well as the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, in order to enable the relevant authorities and sanitation workers gain ready and necessary access to the Korle Lagoon for the immediate desilting of the latter major waterbody to be undertaken, as a health and safety measure before the annual deadly flash flooding of the Greater-Accra Metropolitan Area (See “COVID 19 Lockdown: ABA Fuseini Blasts Govt Over Demolition at Old Fadama” News Desk – Modernghana.com 4/17/20).

In the past, to obviously score cheap political points with the very slum residents whose lives they criminally endangered, as well as doggedly and irrationally hold onto their sinecure and parasitic parliamentary seats, National Democratic Congress’ operatives like Nii Lante Okunka Vanderpuije have cynically and regressively hobbled attempts by extant Greater-Accra Mayors to wisely and foresightedly reduce the rampant incidence of the annual deadly flooding of our nation’s capital, which has been unwisely and irresponsibly rendered prone to massive flooding ever since any adult Ghanaian citizen can remember. You see, many of the recently demolished shanty structures are illegally sited in waterways by squatters on public lands; and instead of playing cheap ethnocentric or tribal politics with the life and safety of the Ghanaian people, Mr. Fuseini and his pathologically partisan associates and fellow travelers and political hustlers ought to responsibly be about the adult business of assisting the very progressive and visionary Akufo-Addo-led Administration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to secure adequate funding for the construction of more decent and affordable housing for low-income but hardworking Ghanaian citizens, including the male and female head porters and load carters who populate this unhygienic environment, whom Mr. Fuseini is presently mischievously pretending to be fiercely defending against unjustifiable official mistreatment.

For the information and enlightenment of cheap-talking populist political scam-artists like Mr. Fuseini, absolutely no group or class of Ghanaian citizens has an inalienable constitutional right to make the nation dangerously unlivable for the rest of us hardworking, taxpaying and law-abiding citizens. Which is why we have every reason and hope to believe that when Ms. Alima Mahama, the Local Government and Rural Development Minister, and Mr. Samuel Atta Akyea, the Minister for Works and Housing, are invited to the august floor of the House, to answer for the recent legitimately embarked demolition exercise that took place in the Old Fadama slummy section of the Greater-Accra Metropolis, these two progressive and dynamic Akufo-Addo cabinet appointees would be readily able to put cheap-talking parliamentary knuckleheads and administrative nuisances like the Sagnarigu NDC-MP in their place. It can absolutely not be gainsaid that the safety and development of the nation must be privileged over and above the cheap and tawdry political fart-letting that only unnecessarily and unwisely endanger the precious lives of hardworking and law-abiding Ghanaian citizens.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net