By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
June 7, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
The sort of cheap politics that obstructed efforts aimed at demolishing buildings and other structures in waterways, in order to drastically reduce the deadly incidence of flooding in Accra, reared its ugly head again when Nii Lante Vanderpuye, the National Democratic Congress' Member of Parliament for Odododiodio Constituency, was reported to have stopped a demolition exercise recently (See "Nii Lante Stops AMA In Bukom" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/8/15). The exercise, which is being undertaken by contractors sponsored by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), comes in the wake of the flooding and fire deaths of over 200 residents of Ghana's capital on Wednesday, June 3, 2015. The exercise was reported to have gone on successfully in the Accra suburb of Achimota.
But at Bukom, in the proverbial eye of the storm, some residents in violation of the city's building codes were reported to have offered stiff resistance to the demolition exercise, with at least one violator calling in Mr. Vanderpuye to halt the process. This is not the first time that political interference has been brought to bear on this otherwise long overdue and healthy exercise. In 2009, for example, when the newly-elected Mills-led National Democratic congress government embarked on a similar exercise, there was a massive outcry on grounds that the demolition exercise was almost exclusively targeting the homes of known members, supporters and sympathizers of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Well, knowing what yours truly has come to know about Ghanaian politics, there just may have been some truth to the allegations, although the government could equally have backed its action with credible evidence indicating that the targeted buildings and structures were smack-dab in areas designated as waterways, and therefore posed a hazard to residents in the event of heavy downpours as occurred on June 3. The problem with the stoppage intervention at Bukom by Mr. Vanderpuye clearly appears to be purely political, in that the Mahama cabinet deputy has not been publicly quoted to be alleging that the demolition exercise being undertaken in his constituency was arbitrary and had absolutely nothing to do with drastically reducing the high incidence of flooding.
If the preceding observation has validity, then there is no other recourse than to have Mayor Oko Vanderpuiye and President John Dramani Mahama call Nii Lante to order, with the possibility of even having him punitively expelled from the Mahama cabinet, as well as being censured or even temporarily suspended from Parliament without pay, in order to serve as a deterrent to any politicians who may be dead-set against this salutary quality-of-life-improvement exercise. As a deputy local government appointee, Nii Lante did not creditably acquit himself. On the critical issue of indiscriminate public defecation, for instance, his best remedy was to counsel the subjection of culprits to corporal punishment, rather than demanding the construction of more toilet facilities, as well as making these facilities readily available to those who needed them the most.
In other words, Nii Lante is one thuggocrat of a man who has absolutely no business pretending to be a public servant. What needs to be done, alongside of this necessary demolition exercise, is for the government to embark on a massive and vigorous educational campaign throughout the country, while at the same time working out some form of mutually acceptable compensation for citizens affected by the exercise. I also partially agree with those counseling against a knee-jerk approach to the demolition exercise. In other words, such exercise ought to be firmly based on an environmental-impact report, one put together by city planners and engineers.
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