Accra not Ghana

ACCRA NOT GHANA

Though Accra is the capital city of Ghana, it seems to have much attention than the other towns and cities in Ghana. So many activities goes on in Accra whiles other cities and towns do not get to partake or sometimes do not even hear of them.

Sometime ago, I read an article by Inusah Mohammed about a graduate from the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Mardiya Suleman Cheiba, who was posted to a remote village in the Northern Region of Ghana called Nsuanayili. Cheiba got to the village only to be met with total deprivation. The pupils didn’t understand any language aside their mother tongue and it was very impossible to teach them without that language. They attended school under trees, some do not concentrate in class because they come to school on empty stomachs, others too had to walk back home to eat during break time and come back to continue the days lessons. The part of the story that really touched me was when the pupils were given a puzzle and they did not know what to do with it, they had never seen anything of that sort and surprisingly, even the headmaster didn’t know the use of the puzzle. Yes of course, this story wasn’t written in Afghanistan, it is right here in Ghana.

On our televisions or radios, you will hear news upon news from our leaders about how a thousand and one schools under trees have been eradicated. About how a thousand and one schools have been built, how teachers have been dispatched all over the country, how our educational systems are moving on smoothly. You will see and hear stories upon stories about how the life of the ordinary Ghanaian has been improved upon, how Ghanaians are doing better now than the previous years. The question is, if Ghanaians are doing well how come parents can’t pack up lunch for children to go to school but these children must go and come back to eat meagre meals. How come the ordinary cannot afford a car to carry his or her children to school? If our educational system has seen improvement how come some children still learn under trees? How come school going children cannot communicate in the English language? The answer is simple; we base our judgements on what we see in the cities.

Take a tour throughout the well to-do vicinities in Accra and everything appears perfect. Children are doing well in schools; parents are able to provide the needs of their children. Businesses are booming. Everything appears perfect. No hardship, no poverty, no depravity, basing our judgements on these vicinities is one of the greatest harms a nation can do to itself.

I once heard a story about researchers who do no research at all. These work-shy researchers will take up contracts that require them to, for example, research into child labour. We all know that such work requires going to the field, but these men and women will sit in their air-conditioned offices, contract some photographers and a few voluntary hands to go to “bankyease” village, take pictures of Egya Atta’s children whose only chore is to carry some cassava home to feed the family. The pictures are brought to the capital where these researchers employ their ingenuity and create brilliant portfolios, they take the money and Egya Atta’s children do not get even a tinny bit of it. After sometime, pictures of brilliant looking Accra children are sent up as feedback reports. And the cycle continues...

You may ask why I am keen on recounting this story. Most often people see how things are going on smoothly in the cities and jump to the conclusion that it is the same all over the country. When researchers are tasked to research into problems facing the rural areas, they only go and capture an aspect of the people’s lives, they capture the part that will satisfy and leave the real story behind. At the end of the day, no problem is solved. Yet they get their monies. If someone had told me about existing schools under trees, I would have branded the person a liar. Why not, after the noise politicians make about how their government have established schools and improved upon education and the lives of the ordinary Ghanaian.

This is what most of us do, because everything is going on smoothly in Accra, we jump to the conclusion that everything is going on smoothly in the entire country, but just so you know ACCRA IS NOT GHANA. We cannot represent the entire country Ghana by just its capital city Accra because Ghana is not just Accra. There are a whole lot of other cities, towns and villages that come together to form the country. Therefore, basing on the developmental trends in only Accra to measure the developmental trend of the entire country is detrimental. I think, instead of sitting on TV and radio and making noise, I think our leaders should pick their “arses” up and get to the rural areas to work. They should stop deceiving us with the goodies in the city. We would love to see the deprivation in the rural areas reduced if not fully removed.

As citizens, it will be beneficial to us to read wide and find out what is really going on in our country before jumping to conclusion. Just as most of my friends err in judging me by little aspects of me, so do we err if we only conclude that our country is doing well by only following trends in the capital. It is true that the capital is the face of the country that other countries see but then a face is not a face without eyes, nose, lips, etc. Therefore all the other parts are important.

After all is said and done, Accra is not the only city, town or village in GHANA.