Go straight, no bend no curve

Go straight, no bend no curve

By Doreen Hammond

At the South Gate of the Gatwick Airport in London stood Kwaku Manu in confusion, his eyes darting around like a clock as everyone passed him by in different directions, bound for different destinations.

Kwaku was to catch the Gatwick express to Seven Sisters where he was to meet someone to send him to the sister he was visiting in Enfield Town. The problem for him now was where to catch the train. The speed at which people passed him by and how focused they looked as they walked away made him unable to gather confidence to ask anyone for help as is the practice he was used to back home. But time was not on his side and his luggage was weighing him down so he had to do something fast.

Fortunately, he saw an information desk and walked there to find out where to locate the station.

“Where can I catch the Gatwick Express to Seven Sisters?" he asked.

The gentleman behind the desk pointed at the big signpost right where he had been standing in confusion and said, “There, Gatwick Express; big signboard, surely you couldn’t have missed it!"

But Kwaku Manu had missed it! He had concentrated on looking at the people moving up and down the station with the intention to ask questions rather than looking out for information on signposts.

Adoley’s ordeal was not any better. She arrived at the University of Exeter for a course and had to find her way to the hostel where she was to lodge. She was handed a map at the porter’s office to do so and that sent shivers down her spine! By the time she finally made meaning of the map and settled in her room, she had spent over an hour to get to the hostel which was not even five minutes from where she was given the map! The cold had dealt with her.

Certainly, Kwaku Manu and Adoley have something in common. They come from a place where signs of any type-- signposts, signboards, road signs and call signs; be they made of wood , metal or plastic ; carrying information of directions or addresses or rules and regulations, dos and don'ts, do not mean much. Not only do they come from Ghana but their kind appears to be many in this country!

The lack of importance we attach to signs have had serious consequences on our development as a people and continues to pose risks even to our lives. On the Accra – Kumasi road, as well as other roads where major construction works are in progress, drivers have been left on their own to figure out where to pass. There are no signs informing the driver as to where to pass and where not to. There are no signs showing where to branch off into Taifa, for instance; you just figure it out. Too bad if you can't; the result is the constant chaos and sometimes accidents on our roads.

Vehicles which break down en route are left on the road without warning triangles and motorists reach the scene too late to notice the tree branches scattered on the road as warning. Sometimes, the results of such inaction have been fatal; loss of lives on our roads.

A driver approaching a clearly marked zebra crossing rather decides to change the gear from third to fifth speed and approaches pedestrians honking and sometimes goes to the extent of putting on his headlights! Is that meant to frighten pedestrians or what?

We have not properly named and numbered our streets in a manner that would make them easily identifiable. If we finally get our Ambulance Service running as it should be, how would we get them to easily reach our homes to pick a woman in labour, for instance, to the hospital? How do we give the Fire Service precise directions to our home when it is on fire and time is of the essence? Even though our postal system seems to be gradually losing its role to new modes of communication like the e-mail and cell phone, the pain of many who have lost the opportunity to attend job interviews because letters lay in their boxes without their knowledge are still fresh to them. We cannot have letters easily delivered to us at home because we don’t have proper home addresses.

Most developed countries are now using the GPRS (Tomtom) to find locations. This is less time-consuming and stressful; unlike the merry go round we tend to do here. It is true we are a developing country but at the rate we are going, when would we be able to use such a facility since we would need to feed the equipment with addresses to enable it direct us to our destination? The sad thing is nothing and nobody appears to be doing anything about it.

Try visiting a friend for the first time and he gives you the direction of a big tree under which people often sit to play draught. Once there, you are to ask for Don’t mind your wife chop bar where you are to ask for a man known in the area as “Original”. Original is supposed to hold your hand and take you to the house you are looking for. So if on that day those people who play the draught do not come for the game under the tree, and “Original” decides to be absent, what happens? Your guess is as good as mine.

It is not as if we do not have signs at all. We do, even to the extent that some of them obstruct our vision at junctions and intersections. We seem to see these signs as more of decorative pieces than for the purpose of providing information and directions. So in a banking hall, for instance, where it is boldly written “Queue here”, we still have people coming to ask where to queue. Could this attitude be related to our low literacy rate? That may not entirely be the case because Adoley was a university student and Kwaku had completed senior high school.

Government after government has made pronouncements on how Ghana is the gateway to Africa and how tourism is being promoted to be one of the country’s major foreign exchange earners. Government delegations after delegations have embarked on trips to woe investors into the country.

But what are we inviting investors to? For investors to maintain their interest in a country, certain things must be in place. Directional signs are certainly one of them. The average visitor to any of our cities must, with the help of a city map and other directional signs, navigate himself about with little fuss as pertains in all truly gateway countries. If we do not properly label our country, we may succeed in bringing some investors into the country alright, but the difficulty they will face in moving about here due to the lack of proper signs may make Ghana anything but a gateway to any destination.

Directional signs are vital for the smooth movement of both locals and visitors and all efforts must be made to ensure that they are where they ought to be and people know how to use them properly. From the way things are going in this country, it may not require a prophet to predict that soon, stopping strangers to ask for directions would be deemed a nuisance.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

Praise ye great and famous

By Doreen Hammond
The year was 1975, a young Ghanaian boxer had annexed a World Featherweight Boxing title, the first in the annals of the nation’s history and an excited country was in celebration mode.
The young David Kotei also known as Poison, had a busy schedule to follow after a tumultuous welcome at the capital’s airport on his arrival. He was met by state functionaries and people from all walks of life. He also had to present the championship belt to the then head of state. This was followed by a nation- wide tour amid songs composed in his honour. My favourite of these songs was Senior Eddie Donkor’s Nea Okom gye ne omie.
Barely a year later, on November 6, 1976, when the heat of the celebrations had died down, DK the darling boy, was billed to defend the title against Danny Lopez, in front of a partisan Ghanaian crowd. How the belt was wrenched from the fists of DK, amid weeping and wailing by Ghanaians and his subsequent demise into oblivion is now steeped in Ghanaian boxing history. Did we learn any lessons from Kotei’s fall as a people?
In 1983, Ghana became the first African country to win the African cup of nations for a record fourth time. Instead of thinking of how to improve on this feat we chose to bask in its glory. Thus, while we chose to be busy touting our achievement, Egypt was busy winning more of the trophies. Since 1983 we have not tasted victory in that continental show piece while Egypt has over taken us and won it seven times and still counting.
In 1991, a Ghanaian youth team mesmerised the world and annexed the FIFA Soccer World Youth Cup. One would have expected that it was going to be the beginning of further successes in that level of the game. Alas, that was to be the only time. In 1994, Ghana took the world by storm during the Olympic Games by being the first African team to get to the quarter finals in football. Reaching the quarter finals, a feat then unattained by any African country, we wallowed in our glory and could not advance further.
Even the voices of Ghanaian commentators who kept harping that it was the first time an African team was going that far, was enough to let the boys feel they had arrived and arrived they had. Come the next tournament, the Nigerian team went all out and won the cup!
Following these tournaments, a Ghanaian super kid was unearthed and touted as the next Pele. What happened to his career and that of his other colleagues who were equally brimming with so much potential at the time, is there for all to see. I am talking about the Alex Opokus, Nii Odartey Lampteys, Emmanuel Duahs and the Kofi Mbias. Yet their counterparts from Europe, Latin America and other parts of the world went on to become class acts like the Ronaldinhos, Ronaldos, Inniestas, Fabio Cannavaros etc. and are still shining.

Let us face it, apart from Abedi Pele, Tony Yeboah, and Sammy Osei Kufour, most Ghanaian youth players with a lot of potential who get drafted into top European teams hardly stay at the top flight for any length of time. Two cars, two houses and some hundred thousand dollars is enough to last one for a life time and so it ends there.

The story is not very different in the boxing sphere where apart from Azumah Nelson, other Ghanaian boxers have exhibited a lack of staying power. Defeats to Scorpion Ofosu, Nana Yaw Konadu, Ike Quartey and in more recent times Ike Quartey, Kofi Jantuah, Joshua Clottey and Joseph Abgeko, point to a worrying development.

What makes the Manny Pacquios, Evander Holyfields, and the De La Hoyas, stay at the top for so long? Similarly what makes the Paul Shole the Ryan Giggs’ Fabio Cannavaros, Salgados and the Palo Maldinis play at the top for decades while our boys fizzle away after two seasons in a Turkish or Greek league?
Is the case different with our business tycoons? Do they also realise their full potential and look at the market beyond Ghana? Or are they happy with a few cars and wives, while the Abramovichs, Bill Gates and Dangote’s acquire private jets and yachts? How come that no Ghanaian is listed in Africa’s wealthiest 50 people? Yet, the country is said to be very rich in so many resources.



The big question to ask is: is this lack of staying power in the Ghanaian genes, psychological, cultural or what?
Seems there is a cultural dimension to it. I am talking of the way we over hail these people even before they have found their feet at the top. Such unwarranted praises enter their heads and while they remain in cloud nine, the exigencies of the game bring them back to reality.
Take the case of Asamoah Gyan, a young player with a potential to grow. He scored three goals most of them through penalty kicks at the last world cup. His outings in Europe have seen him having a stint at Udinese and Rennes club in France. His performances at both clubs were nothing to write home about.
The man moves to Sunderland where he has just scored ten goals and already we are comparing him to accomplished players like Samuel Eto, Leo Messi, Pele etc. Ghanaian journalists are already speculating a move for him to Manchester United knowing very well that it is nothing outside the figment of their imagination. How do we expect him to develop the mind set to continue to improve when the perception is that he has already arrived?
Though it is good to praise, over praising has never helped anybody. It brings about complacency and then what follows is a sinking into oblivion of the once held high champion. Ghanaians can hail you to your fall, those at the top beware!

Noise Noise everywhere--any help?

By Doreen Hammond
It is 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I have just alighted from a trotro and I’m entering the central business area. I just leaped to get across a choked gutter filled to the brim with polythene material and the rotten left-overs of whatever one can think of. My mission? To get the family’s stock of necessities for the week ahead. I am at a marketplace, call it market Y, though in truth it is identical to most of our markets in Accra and other urban centres in the country.

The stench emanating from this market is just unbearable. In addition to the pungent smell is the muddy ground that I and the hundreds of other visitors have to navigate as we go about our business. Clearly, this market was not designed as such from the beginning; it must definitely have been an afterthought, something which just sprang up. Another certainty is that this market has not seen any facelift for as long as it has been called a market.

As I meander my way about, almost choking, I observe our mothers, sisters and wives, some carrying babies of varying ages, sitting by their wares in the stench and muddy ground. Right ahead of me is a waste disposal container that is heavily overburdened with rubbish. Like the market women who have lost any hope of ever operating in a decent environment, the container looked resigned to its fate, not knowing when next it would be relieved of its foul contents.

In front of me is a tax collector busily collecting the daily tolls from the market women and kayayei (female porters), obviously unperturbed by the fact that people operating in such an environment rather need to be paid some compensation! Ideally, they owe nobody even a dime!

Ahead of me is a dilapidated van mounted with a public address system advertising a herbal product interspersed with loud music. Opposite the herbal medicine vendor is a small bus terminal from where another public address system is blurting the destination of vehicles: Korle Bu, Kaanesh- Odorkor, Circle, Suhum- Nsawam , Spintex etc.

Fifty metres ahead is a solo church operating loud speakers bleating out a gospel song, Okramanfunuba. A microphone- wielding soul-searcher with a tattered King James Version of the Holy Book (hemust have been doing this work for quite a long time) tucked under his armpit appeals to passersby to cast their bread upon the waters……

All these are complemented by the shrill voices of market women trying to outdo each other as they attract customers to their wares. Commercial vehicle drivers carrying passengers and foodstuffs to various parts of the city entertain themselves with persistent blowing of their horns, the louder they blew, the better they felt, it seemed, adding to the chaos in the market.

The one-and-half hours spent in the market was like hell as the stench, combined with utmost noise had the potential to make one lose it. Thankfully, I managed to hop unto a bus heading back home. As soon as the bus took off, there popped up, a preacher on wheels who continued to admonish us to seek the face of the Lord and ended up selling a concoction to those who cared. He managed to draw the passengers into what he actually came to do by shouting Amen, Amen! Hallelujah!

The testimonies he gave about the concoction were too good to be true; with such a wonder drug capable of curing every illness under the sun, who needs a doctor? As soon as he got off the bus, the driver turned on his radio, and from under my seat I could hear the vibration of loud sounds from some wooden speakers, the type we see at funerals these days. The volume had been turned up so loud as to make the call of the mate for payment inaudible.

I dropped by at the salon to fix my hair on my way home and apart from the owner’s TV set which was on , a small radio was also on with volume raised so high! Adjacent to the salon was a music recording studio which was at full blast. When I asked what was happening there, the response I got was “Oh, they sell CDs”… Since when did the selling of CDs give one the licence to make noise?

My hair done, I decided to make the rest of the journey home on foot only to encounter a convoy of speeding vehicles, all touting their horns. My enquiry revealed that the convoy was escorting a departed colleague to the cemetery! So why the rush and excitement if they were only on their way to bury the dead? I questioned aloud, not expecting an answer from any one though.

Thank God I’m home now. After dinner I thought I could lie down and consume myself in what I call “inflection”, “thinking about myself”. Alas, it is a Saturday night and we are all expected to be part of Prophet Odeneho, Bishop Nyame Ba and Pastor Mente Gyae’s huhudios all-night vigils, which cross we the residents must bear on a weekly basis. With the loud music and speaking in tongues into microphones complemented by three drinking bars attacking from all flanks of my room, I could do nothing close to sleep before the cocks took over at dawn. Another sleepless night as usual as I grudgingly gathered my wretched body out of bed but not out of sleep.

Such is the plight of an average Accra dweller. So when do we have the serenity to think? Is noise becoming a virtue?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not think so. This agency is mandated to prescribe standards and guidelines relating to the pollution of air, water, land and noise. It liaises and co-operates with government agencies and other bodies and institutions to protect the environment.

Mrs Angelina Tutuah Mensah, Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the EPA, says the EPA has intensified its campaigns to educate the public that it is a criminal offence to make noise and that noise poses serious health hazards including loss of hearing. The EPA is doing this through various public and private media. It is to continue with these campaigns on community and experimental radios and will employ the organisation of regional environmental durbars for the purpose.

Significantly, the daily complaints the EPA has been receiving has increased from 10 to 35 recently, an indication that people are not happy about noise and would not allow others to disturb their peace. The other side of this increase in the number of complaints, however, could be that those who are creating noise are not stopping the practice or that more people are making noise!

So what are our options as citizens being disturbed by noise? Mrs Mensah explains that the individual so disturbed should approach the person making the noise for a dialogue on the matter. If the noise persists, he/she should write to the metropolitan, municipal or district assembly and copy the EPA. What the EPA does after receiving such complaint is to come to the location with equipment/machines to monitor the situation with the view to finding out if the noise being made is permissible. Once it establishes that the noise is indeed unacceptable, it writes to the person making the noise. If he does not stop, it then sends the matter to court.

The EPA has great challenges in carrying out this function which is only a fraction of its mandate, with only 350 professionals. Mrs Mensah spoke of dangers staff faced going out deep into the night to measure noise levels and the possibility of being mistaken for armed robbers especially because of the equipment they go with. Added to this, she notes that the family life of personnel was being deeply affected.

She was of the opinion that the fines that went with those convicted for making noise was not serving as a deterrent and called for the strengthening of the laws to be able to review such fines.

Another challenge facing the EPA is the inactiveness of the assemblies in checking noisemaking.

The Local Government Act 1993 (Act 462) empowers the District Assembly by section 10(3) (e) to be responsible for the development, improvement and management of human settlement and the environment in the district.

Each District Assembly is also established by Act 462 as the Planning Authority for its area of authority. One important function of the Planning Authority, very relevant to having implications for noise pollution control is its powers of enforcement against nuisance.

Section 296(7) makes it an offence in any town to willfully or wantonly and after being warned to desist, make any loud or unseemly noise to disturb any person.

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) for instance has bye laws (1995) that prohibit the sale of records and other recorded music without approval and licence. The law prohibits the playing of any recorded music in public for advertising purpose so as to cause a public nuisance, and the prohibition of the playing of music in night clubs, restaurants or drinking bars or other places of refreshment or entertainment to an extent of causing public nuisance.

The bye-laws also prohibit the playing of music when conducting a religious service so loudly so as to cause a nuisance to the public and residents in the area!

So with all these laws why do the assemblies look on while such noise goes on? Why do people continue to disturb the peace of others in their communities?

Mr Kwao Sackey, Chief Executive of the Ga East Municipal Assembly, explained in an interview at Abokobi that the assembly had been receiving many complaints about noise being created by drinking bars and churches in the municipality but the assembly’s difficulty in checking the situation was the lack of a doscimeter— an instrument for measuring noise levels.

He said the assembly had to prove in court that a person was making noise above the permitted level of 55 decibels and this could only be done by the doscimeter which the assembly does not have.

“ So for now we try to do mediation between the complainant and the person a complaint has been brought against”, he said.

He said noise-making was a serious problem at low-income areas where people seem more accommodating of noise from churches and would not want to complain for fear of being labelled witches and wizards.

Mr Joseph Quacoe, Municipal Environmental Officer (Public Health), appealed to the public for assistance to procure a doscimeter for the assembly to aid it in its work since requests for money to buy one has not yielded response.

The doscimeter costs GH¢8,000.

The challenges faced by the EPA and the assemblies and the general attitude of Ghanaians towards noise may mean that noise-making would be part of us for a long time to come. For those of us who are suffering from excessive noise, prayers to change the heart of noise-makers may seem our only way out now!

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com