Squatters Deface North Airport

The beautiful landscape of the North Airport residential area along the disused railway line, stretching from the Nyaho Clinic towards President Kufuor's residence has now been defaced with a motley of makeshift structures, which squatters have turned into their homes.

The squatters were there before President Kufuor took over power, and the relevant authorities have not been able to muster the courage to do something about them.

In July residents of the area called for the relocation of the squatters, but this has not yielded any results as the unwanted neighbours continue to stay put.

The non-use of the railway line by the Ghana Railway Corporation has encouraged the squatters to entrench their positions, and they constantly receive new comers. It has been reliably learnt that some officials of the GRC have rented some parts of the area to them and that is the reason why they are not showing any interest in ejecting them.

Because of the absence of public toilet facilities at the place the squatters make do with the nearby overgrown bushes.

On 20th August this year the GRC ordered squatters on the corporations property in a newspaper advertisement to leave them within one month of the announcement. This order has fallen on deaf ears as the squatters continue to occupy the location.

The issue of relocation of squatters is such a delicate matter that governments are always cautious about how they go about them.

It will be recalled that a couple of years ago the last government gave an ultimatum to the squatters at the Konkomba market to leave the place spelling out an elaborate plan for the exercise - ambulances, the police and the military. A few days to the deadline the government rescinded its decision to use force for the exercise, because elections were around the corner and since then the squatters have continued to stay at the place.

Now the ecological works on the Korle Lagoon has reached a stage where the squatters must give way. The deputy minister for works, Mrs. Theresa Tagoe and some other government officials recently undertook a mission to explain the need for the squatters to accept the new location at Amasaman so the civil works is not stalled. The success of any major ejection exercise by government agencies calls for tact and finnesse.

In the early days of the Nkrumah regime the Konkomba market used to be called Fadama, an implication that it is a waterlogged area.To obviate the perennial human suffering associated with the flooding of the place Nkrumah ejected the residents and relocated them at what is today New Fadama. This was the last major ejection exercise in the city of Accra and ironically after that a new set of squatters have taken over the place.

What has become a new slums at the North Airport Residential area if not uprooted, will create big social and security problems in the near future.