Yesterday, I was forced to ask whether we (Ghanaians) are truly created in the image of God. My conclusion is that we are not, but before you condemn me, please hear me out.
I left Accra for home at around 5:50 pm and when I asked lady Google to give me an estimated arrival time it indicated that it would take me 1hr and 45mins to traverse a journey of approximately 31kms.
With no choice, I hit the pedal and at the tail end of the ex-motorway, lady google once again intervened and advised that due to the traffic ahead, it would be best to divert my route via the harbour road and join the TOR to Kpone road.
I dutifully acquiesced since I was not prepared to sit in traffic between the free zone and Kpone barrier for nothing less than an hour, especially since I had read prior that a truck fully loaded with yellow gallons of oil had overturned with its goods earlier in the day and knowing our relative lack of heavy-duty equipment to free up the road as fast as possible, I was not in the mood to be kept prisoner by our inefficiencies.
By the time I hit the ToR to Kpone stretch it was pitch dark and even though I am no stranger to that route for a moment I thought of turning back since I was not sure what I was getting into and boy or boy the road that I knew which was bad previously had gotten worse.
Every mile of the stretch, even at 20 km per hour, had the vehicle creaking with increasing discomfort. The road simply put is not fit for purpose for even off-road vehicles.
What was also worrying in addition to the contention of out manœuvring the crater-like road was the discomforting thought of a breakdown under such circumstances and the health impact resulting from excessive dust whipped up by these vehicles and breathed in by workers and residents near and far. What is the cost of these avoidable ailments on our supposed and vibrant segment of our population?
The above aside, I was baffled as to why such an economically vital road has been left unattended to for the past how many years. This is the road that has most of Ghana’s oil storage and power generating firms. What sin has the honest workers who travel each day to earn their keep committed? What ill has the investor done to merit such disrespect? Not to talk about the ordinary citizen who, because he has been priced out of accommodation in more comfy suburbs, is forced to make his home here.
If that is not enough, one is not done after that brutish ride. One must prepare to encounter another rough patch of a road linking Kpone township and the Kpone barrier. That stretch in one word is terrible. My experience left me asking ‘are the people of Kpone, not Ghanaians?’ What is their crime? Why do they have to suffer such pain daily? In the midst of all this so we truly expect them to be tax-paying citizens and act honestly? Why do they even vote beats my mind.
Our government, in my humble opinion, has its priorities messed up. Travel to nearby La Côte d’Ivoire and the roads linking the hub of their economic nerve centres are first class. We have the reverse. I sometimes wonder why investors choose to invest here.
Our leaders are mean, and as a people, we are mean to and disrespectful of each other.
Indeed, no one should be made to use the aforementioned roads it is demeaning. It doesn’t connote respect for the other.
We claim to be religious - many Ghanaians will claim to be created in the image of God. That God I am told is a God of perfection - if that is true, then our penchant for the imperfect leaves one to wonder - are we truly created in the image of God?
