OF AN ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF FLOODS AND PR “FUNFAIR"

When nature hits back with vengeance (Picture: Taken from online library)

The opportunity has come for PR and it must be milked before sunset, we need to get some publicity and goodwill even while we try to save lives; this is what I see some of the companies doing with their donations in the aftermath of the Wednesday June 3, 2015 disaster.

It came without any forewarning, passed before it could be noticed and yet left footprints that can hardly be erased. Some described it as apocalypse, others called it the twin disaster but I prefer to call it the Fire-flood because of the stunning collaboration between two enemies, fire and flood, which resulted in a destructive show that left Ghana depopulated by a margin of over 150 precious lives.

Man was simply helpless (Picture from online library)

The rain came down ferociously and this together with the resultant flood and widespread power outage in parts of the capital gave us a rude reminder and a quick sense of man’s vulnerability.

It first came as an exaggeration or better still like one of those devastating foreign news about deadly earthquakes and hurricanes that are so distant from us, but pictures and videos soon came slapping us with the reality and plunging mother Ghana into a sober reflection on the distressing impact of our clash with nature.

Activities in the capital city nearly came to a halt and casualty figures were bandied around. Not only helpless toddlers and women, but stout young men with all their agility and strength were swayed in an angry tide and washed down drains like pieces of paper. It still blows my mind how flood water could plot with fuel spillage to spark an inferno that would soon angrily reduce living beings into charred bodies.

As if to stir the feelings of sensitive viewers and relatives of the victims, we saw our brothers striped of the little dignity left of them even as corpses. Their remains were loaded like logs into the bucket of a goods-carrying truck and paraded in the open to show how ineffective our ambulance service/emergency service system is and how far back we are in our preparedness to handle emergencies. We were simply tactless and this might have contributed to the level of fatality.

These were the same individuals who left home full of life in pursuit of bread to keep “man” (and family) going, little did they know they were going to end up by close of day in a putrid cold room and freezer in transit to the ancestral village. They will soon have their last posthumous public appearance to wrap up their rudely interrupted earthly journey from which point they shall be cramped into their narrow wooden beds to be re-integrated with mother earth from which they came.

In terms of the degree of loss and severity of agony visited on mother Ghana, this June 3 fire-flood ranks topmost, at least in recent history. The May 9 stadium disaster which left about 127 dead broke hearts and shook the very foundation of the country and same was the famous Melcom tragedy which left human beings helplessly trapped underneath debris and heavy concrete slabs right before the naked eyes of onlookers who though could watch the victims desperately wave from across the bridge of life and death, could only do little.

And the water level kept rising angrily 

If this year’s flood was this devastating, we can’t escape the conclusion that next year’s will be similar or worse given the increasing population in the capital city, the continuous blocking of drains and haphazard siting of structures which are done with impunity under the watch of our leaders who prefer to deal leniently and selectively with law breakers for purposes of political expediency.

The kneejerk reaction will lose steam in a matter of days, the threat and or promise to take aggressive action to sanitise the system will fade into thin air and we will all go back to bed until nature attacks again. These things must stop and the time is now. Beyond the impulsive demolition and the comic scenes of staged clean ups, let us have some early warning systems and better integrate key institutions like the meteorological service into the scheme of things.

The AMA task force and inspectors must get to the actual work beyond just hounding and harassing the hawkers and instead sniff for sprawling slums and construction works that have the potential of causing havoc.

If we have to shape the process for the issuance of building permit and weed out crooks who condone and connive with developers to overlook the general good of the citizenry which causes us these headaches in the long term, nothing should stop us from doing so, otherwise we might just want to go to bed and continue to die when nature strikes with vengeance.

Nuumo Oko (Library picture)

Now Ghana's (and Accra's) version of "Sodom and Gomorrah" is gone courtesy Nuumo Oko’s reactive action but are we not merely redistributing these folks to the adjourning slums? What measures are in place to soak the many ripples the exercise generates including the near uprising as witnessed on Monday? And how did we even get here to have this huge congregation before evicting them? What shows that we won’t watch them sneak back given the precedents we have witnessed?

That is why I want to believe corporate Ghana can go beyond the ensuing PR gimmicks and funfair. Instead of this annual ritual of donations which may largely go unaccounted for, given the Ghana in which we find ourselves, a long term CSR project could be the provision of a low cost- I mean low cost- residential facilities in partnership with government to house these slum dwellers, then we can begin to better guard the environment to prevent the springing up of more such unplanned settlements.

Is this the end of Sodom and Gomorrah? (Credit: Library picture)

By this we would not only have created some space for the free flow of water (to reduce the frequency and intensity of the flood) but we would also have given human face and forward-looking approach to the exercise. 

Again, let us get proactive; let us take some bold and masculine steps, get our hands dirty and implement workable strategies that will prevent a recurrence, otherwise we risk wailing again and celebrating this annual festival of floods and PR funfair.

I have spoken my mind and not yours; let the discerning reader and well-meaning-Ghanaian make meaning of this piece

The writer is a journalist and a blogger at the thekroboquill.blogspot.com and can be reached via klonobi2007@gmail.com or 0266 000 747. You can follow him on twitter with the handle @henkingklonobi