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Feature Post

ON A SULTRY mid- afternoon of Thursday stands a lady, almost nude, throwing water on her body. A group of young men sitidle meters away from her, chatting andpuffing marijuana. Not far from her and justby a ramshackle that passes as a place ofconvenience besides a huge pile of refusedump, two young men stick their knives intothe carcass of a slaughtered sheep.Bloodstained cotton pads lie not far from the slaughter slab.This is an example of the daily activities of Ghana’s version of the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, a settlement of over 23,000 people(according to the last census report), which lies by the bank of the dead Korle lagoon now undergoing a $67 million reclamation exercise.“Sex is nothing here; rape is normal. Fewthings surprise few people. Sleeping outside inthe night is an invitation for a predator tostrike. Most of us sleep with tight protectiveunderwear – especially tight worn-out jeans onbecause you could wake up in the middle ofthe night to find somebody crawling on you todo his own thing,” Mumuna Seidu, a porter atthe Agbogboloshie Market, recalls.Amina Halittu from Lawra, a resident and a hired hand at one of the numerous retailing shops at the Makola Market, Accra, recounts an experience where she woke up in themiddle of the night to see a man trying to rape her. She believes she was lucky he didnot succeed. She would not have had theenergy and willingness to report to the police,she said.Truth is, there is an ‘inner city’ law thatoperates. Avoid, where possible, in drawingthe focus of the police on activities here, isthe cardinal principle members of thecommunity live by. It’s treachery to attempt todo anything outside this and it could result inlife-threatening situations. Police sources say out of the number of suspected criminals arrested in the police andarmy swoop at Sodom and Gomorrah lastmonth, a number of criminals were identified.Twenty-four of the suspects were lateridentified as armed robbers. Others werefound with “wee” and cocaine when searched,sources say. Several instances exist wherewanted criminals, including murderers wantedby the police have been arrested in Sodom andGomorrah.Life here is the survival of the fittest. It’sunlike anywhere else. In short, the community,born barely 10 years ago, has emerged as analbatross, with its attendant cases of socialvices. Lying few kilometres from the main businessdistrict of Accra, Sodom and Gomorrah hasalways put a temporary halt to theconstruction of the Korle Lagoon Recreationalproject. And despite recent directives from theMinister of Local Government and RuralDevelopment, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, andDeputy Minister of Works and Housing,Theresa Tagoe, to members of the settlementto move out to pave way for the project to goon, the situation remains the same.The original residents of this area officiallyknown as Korle Dudor or Old Fadama, whichstretches from the Korle-Lagoon to theMosque at Abossey Okai, were resettled at NewFadama, near Abeka, by the Nkrumahad ministration.The area was then earmarkedfor a Korle lagoon Recreational Facility. After the overthrow of Nkrumah in the 1966 coup,the place was left to fallow.After a clash of Kokomba and Nanumba traders at the Yam market ain Accra in 1980,the Limann administration,sources say,decided to temporary rehabilitate the Kokomba faction at Old Fadama (present day Sodom and Gomorrah) to pave way for government tolook for a place to resettle them. Later, a group of Nzema coconut oil sellers and KwahuRussia second-hand cloth sellers joined theKokombas as temporary settlers of the land.It was then still known as Old Fadama. Until Mr. Kofi Portuphy, immediate past chairman ofthe National Disaster Mobilisation Organisation(NADMO) and one-time Chief Executive of theAccra City Council (ACC), now renamed theAccra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), assumed the city’s mayoral chair after the dismissalfrom office of the then chief executive, Mr. E.T. Mensah in 1992.It was gathered from various sources that onthe eve of the 1992 Non-Alligned Movement(NAM) conference in Ghana, Portuphy, thenthe new AMA boss, asked the street hawkersalong the pavements of Accra to relocate to New Fadama to give the city a beautiful faceliftduring the period of the conference. After persistent pressure, the hawkers moved in.Dr. J. Bart-Plange, the private medicalpractitioner who owns and operates the onlyhealth facility in the community, and Mr. E. T.Mensah, ex-Youth and Sport Minister and one-time Chief Executive of AMA, as well as anumber of the original settlers of Sodom andGomorrah believe that this is the genesis of the current problem.According to Dr. Bart-Plange, by the time theconference ended and the hawkers moved back onto the streets, a new wave ofsettlement had began with every homelessperson relocating to Old Fadama. After they started pushing the frontierstowards the lagoon, he said he warned the newsettlers of the consequences of their action.“I told them that like Sodom and Gomorrah,what they were doing by building close to the lagoon would end in the destruction of theplace one day, and that they should know thatthere is a permanent plan in place for thearea.”Hence, the emergence of the name Sodom andGomorrah. But just as names have meaning,the people of the area have been living up tothe meaning of the Biblical namesake.In 1994 Kokomba-Nanumba conflict worsenedthe situation as large droves of people flockedfrom the conflict area into Sodom andGomorrah, pushing its frontiers further. Today,it remains one of the biggest problems facingthe national capital.At a glance from the main Agbogboloshiestreet of Accra, all seem too well with the areapointing to Sodom and Gomorrah. Shops by the streets give a reflection of a normal market centre that exists in other communities. Beyond the imagery, however,lie the real Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘It’s a bloton the national psyche that we have a community like this. And instead of resolvingits problems or resettling them, we decided toresettle Liberian refugees,” Dr. Bart-Plangesaid, referring to the resettlement of Liberian refugees by the UN and Ghana at Buduburam.But Sodom and Gomorrah, according to Aryeh Datey, Chief Executive Officer of the Ashiedu Keteke Sub-Metro Council of the AMA, is an illegal settlement.He said the AMA has never issued permits for building to any of the residents because the land area is a government property over which they have no authority.Incidentally, a number of residents of this illegal settlement claim they pay property rates, as well as other forms of taxes to thestate through the metro district council every year. But while Datey admitted that the AMA collects business rates from shop owners alongthe main Agbogbloshie side of Sodom and Gomorrah, he says his office does so because‘they engage in business activities and we needthe revenue.”But many residents disagree. Some insist thatthey are legitimate settlers and should beseparated from those close to the KorleLagoon in the area, who they the residentsthemselves refer to as ‘the real squatters.”He believes the collection does not give legal title or claim to any of the people in the area and that all the residents are squatters.“We pay for water, we pay for electricity (and)we pay property rates and many other things.How come they take our money but deny us the right to exist here,” asked Opoku Frimpong, another resident.Though the area has electricity, water, phones and even communication centres, the environmental and sanitation situation is best seen than described.The area has a high rate of infection of communicable diseases, according to the AMA sub-metro chief. He said the deplorable environmental status of the area had led to ahigh concentration of serious communicable diseases in Ghana at the Ashiedu Keteke district.He said the number of cholera cases recorded in the district per year is alarming, adding that because of these problems the district always has its name high on the lists of districts with serious health related diseases attributable to unsanitary conditions.According to Dr. Bart-Plange, everybody in the area was made to understand that they were temporary settlers before they settled. He,however, believes that the government must resettle those it promised to resettle.Messrs De-graft Johnston and Alfred Y.Adjepong, Chairman and Secretary respectively of one of the original settlers organisations,the "Obroni Wawu" (Second-hand cloths) Sellers Association, also noted in separate interviews that they were made to understand that they were temporary residents of the area pending resettlement.Both men, however, argue that since the areahas already developed, the only way out is forgovernment to provide the necessary amenitiesto lift the place up and allow the residents tostay.But the solution to the situation, many agree,lies in the political will of the Kufuor administration to implement the decision tomove the residents out.According to E. T. Mensah, what is needed tosolve the situation at Sodom and Gomorrah is the political will. “The government needs thepolitical will to deal with the situation because there is no way we can have what we have now where it is,” he said.He noted that Sodom and Gomorrah shouldnot have been where it is. “There is no reason for it to be where it is today.”E. T. Mensah, who was the chief of thecapital’s metro organisation for a long time,noted that the Korle Lagoon recreation projecthad been on the drawing board since independence and every person living in thearea had been made to understand that he wasa temporary squatter.According to him, there is no reason why theKorle Lagoon Recreational project should notgo on.The Chairman of the Ashiedu Keteke Sub-MetroDistrict Council, Aryeh Datey, in a separateinterview also expressed similar sentiments.“What is needed, and has been needed to solvethis issue all this while, is the political will,” hesaid.He added: “Politicians, unfortunately, do notthink like us civil servants. They more or lesslook at the votes and act, and that has beenthe problem at Sodom and Gomorrah.” He said such political calculations rendered the pas tNDC government incapable of resolving the problem.“But I believe if it is done, the governmentstands to benefit more than they could lose,”he argued. “The project itself would provide employment to the teeming number of unemployed youth here and revive the economy of this place. For now, the politicalwill is needed and we hope the NPP wouldprovide that. As of now, it’s clear they mustgo,” Datey stressed.This story first appeared in The Nation, aweekly newsmagazine then edited by AlfredOgbamey when Kofi Ghana was 13 years.I am now 25years and, their population has moved from 15,000 to 80,000.In 2011, why did NDC protest against Kuffour NPP relocation of this community to "Adjen Kotoku"?The NDCs must answer me!Why didn't Kuffour NPP go ahead to relocate this community to "Adjen Kotoku"?Why did the Mahama NDC demolished the community without compensation or relocation or alternate settlement?Is that fair?Are these politicians thinking of "power! Power! Power!" Or they think of what will benefit Ghanaians?I love the stands of NPP on this demolition saga as the NPPs are "NOT AGAINST THE DEMOLITION AS NDCs DID HYPOCRITICAL IN 2011" instead the NPPs are "AGAINST THE MEANS /PROCESS OR WAYS THE Mahama NDC used to destroy the community and their properties. #iloveghana