How one man used his influence on Facebook to spearhead the cleaning of gutters at Tema Station

The first time he went by the Tema Station in Accra in December 2020 and noticed the stench emanating from the gutters surrounding the place, as well as the unimaginably heavy rubbish in them, he felt that making a post about it on Facebook would be great.

That post, totally unexpected of him, gained some good traction online but he still wasn't sure of what would come out of that, like other posts, he just let it do what it was doing.

By February 2021 when Nana Tea, as he is popularly known, went by the place again and noticed a worse form of what he had noticed months back, he again felt the need to use his little influence online to draw the attention of duty bearers to it.

He however noticed that it was not purely the doing of people in authority, as the contents of the gutters showed, but the indiscipline of food vendors and the constant users of the station that was worsening the sanitation of the area.

He felt it was right to do something about it himself and so he scheduled March 8, 2021, for it, but his plans didn't materialize after it became impossible for him to acquire all the equipment and the workforce he needed for it.

The Comments Section

Nana Tea told GhanaWeb in a telephone interaction that he later noticed a comment in the comments section under one of his posts that re-generated his interest.

“This will be taken place on the 20th of this month come in your numbers as we clean up the place. Let make our mother land beautiful,” this caption showed with a photo under his post.



The post from a non-governmental organization called Kofi Goal 6, revived Nana Tea’s interests in doing what he had initially planned, seeing that the group was intended to do the same thing.

“I contacted them and we planned how I could support them in the clean-up. They assured me they were bringing enough hands to get the work done and so I also went ahead to mobilize the support on my end,” he explained.

Nana Tea said he then went ahead to break his ‘susu’ box – monies he was saving for something else, and committed those funds into securing a water tanker to support the work.

The A-Plus Reaction

Earlier though, when he shared the first post in December, Kwame A Plus, the controversial musician, reposted one of his photos which showed the filthy gutter in front of the Ghana Health Service.

He questioned how it is that a gutter right in front of the Health Service office could be that dirty

“Sometimes we have to leave the politicians and deal with institutions. Akufo Addo can’t stop everything and clean this gutter in front of Ghana Health Service. The health service is rather a breeding place for mosquitoes and transmission of diseases. Like how?

“Public and civil servant must be held responsible. In fact they are the most irresponsible and corrupt in Ghana. It can’t always be the politicians. Come on!!!" Kwame A Plus wrote.



The Clean Up

On March 20, 2021, with the support of some over 25 friends from Facebook, Nana Tea joined his new partners, Kofi Goal 6, and gradually, cleaned up the gutters, restoring some good scent back to the area.

When asked what his motivation was all along, to the extent that he had to break his piggybank just to finance part of the work, Nana Tea said that he has always believed that our individual contributions can go a long way to make our society better.

“The smiles on the faces of people has been my motivation so far. I am of the firm believe that our society (that is African societies) can be better off, when we don't only complain but rather find answers to meet the needs we complain about no matter how little those solutions may be. That is why I decided to use social media in promoting positive values that can makes the difference in our nation starting from the family then to the larger society,” he said.

In the end, Nana Tea was able to secure new working tools for the Water Tanker Service as well as paid for half the cost of the cost of conveying the refuse that they had gathered following the cleanup exercise.