The 'Dumsorisation' of 'Dumsor'

I heard the cock crow loudly from a distance and I knew it was dawn but I was tired and I only had to turn around to have some more sleep. I realized that even though I have been asleep for a very long time, I still couldn't feel the impact of my sleep.

I realized also that my bed was so wet that it seemed someone had poured water on me. I jerked up very angry and hoping to find the bastard who felt my bed was the only place he or she could pour his or her water, I groped around still feeling very dizzy,then I remembered that I was all alone in my one room apartment and therefore no one could possibly come in and pour water on me.

So what then was it? Ahhh, Oh I was sweating profusely because there has been a blackout just some few minutes after I had slept and since then it hasn't returned. Hmmm, I sighed!

I sat on my crooked stool that leaned against the wall in the corner of my room and I fanned myself with my shirt. I was so uncomfortable that it was as if my body was burning. I was so angry within and I wished I knew the person who had taken the light. I would have beaten the person to a pulp. On my stool, I was dozing off. I could feel in my mind,body and soul that I really needed sleep badly in order for me to wake up and attend class(work) in the morning. I was going to have a very long day.

"What kind of nonsense is this?", I yelled at no particular person. I looked for my keys, opened the door and went outside. The whole town was swallowed in darkness. I could only see lights flickering at different areas occasionally. I went back in,took my mat and came out to sleep. I was determined to sleep no matter what and so I did. But it was short lived because morning came earlier than I expected. It was 6:30am and the light was still not back. I fumed with anger! "So who at all is in charge of bringing the lights back?", I asked rhetorically.

The frustration, the pain,the anger,the insults and many more is the plight of Ghanaians. We are experiencing this trauma as a result of the power outages in the past few years. The Akosombo dam (built in 1965 to produce about 1,038MW of electricity) says, "I have done my best by serving Ghana since independence. Enough is enough!" The Kpong dam which was built in 1982 bemoans, "I was not built as big enough as expected so I can't produce much" and the Bui dam which was built feverishly yet haphazardly in 2010 to produce 400MW of hydroelectric power has also refused to hearken to our yelling and insults.

I do not blame the dams we have because they are not at fault at all. They are doing their very best to serve Ghana in their maximum capacity. I blame our leaders who instead of doing much better than their predecessor, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, they rather lowered the bar.

Whiles countries like China, Japan, Russia, America, Singapore and other developed countries whose sunlight is not as abundant as we have in Ghana are building solar plants and generating power through solar technology, we in Ghana are using our sunlight to dry konkonte(dried cassava), okro, pepper(powdered pepper or Ashawo moko), maize, cocoa and other food items. In Ghana, the wind blows so hard than many developed countries.

It may interest you to know that as at the year 2014, China produced over 114,763MW of wind power. USA boasts of producing 65,879MW, Germany had 39,165MW, Spain also produced 22,987MW and India realized a capacity of 22,465MW of wind power. All these figures where obtained in 2014 alone.

So therefore it is disheartening to know that whiles all these countries are busily using windmills to generate power to feed their industries and homes, we use our wind in Ghana to blow away the chaff from our corn and to dry clothes. We have a plethora of water bodies in Ghana which we can use to generate large hydroelectric power yet all we use our water bodies for is fishing, swimming and transporting firewood from one village to the other.

How can we develop as a country with such primitive thinking in this space and time? How can we move forward when we use lanterns made of used milk or milo tins as a source of light?

Dumsor in Ghana has been dumsorized! There is a problem and we are all aware of the problem yet our all knowing politcians have refused to admit the inarguable. They want to play smart so we keep suffering for the same pain.

Sometime ago, we were issued with timetables by the ECG as though we were studying Electronics or Electrical engineering in Ghana. Well, it helped a bit because we knew when our lights would be taken and when it will be brought back so we prepared for it.

It's rather unfortunate that as it stands now, since our lecturer(the government) has been changed, we are following a new system and so there are no timetables nor any explanations to the citizenry whatsoever.

For the past months in Kumasi, we have experienced low currents and the lights flashes in and out as if we are in a night club. I am highly informed by some of my friends in the Volta Region of Ghana and some other parts that they have experienced long hours of power outages for months unending. Many Ghanaians are losing huge sums of money due to these frequent power cuts yet our leaders live in affluence because they can afford a plant or generator in their homes.

I just don't know why our leaders in Ghana and Africa cannot think out of the box and do the right things. We are failing year by year,month by month and day by day. Our problems are worsening.

Let me pause here by borrowing a quote from Prof. Patrice Loch Otieno Lumumba who says,"You don't blame the windmill when it's not working but you rather work on the direction of the wind".

This quote is very evidential in the sense that,we keep blaming our leaders who are actually "misleaders" for their poor leadership qualities yet we voted them into power. We gave them the chance to mislead us and they maltreat us because we know not our right as a people.

African leaders feel that they are doing us a favor by leading us! God have mercy!