The Mystery Of Liberty Avenue
By The Chronicle Feature Article | Fri, 26 Sep 2008
| 
 TELL ME WHAT COMPANY YOU KEEP, AND I WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU ARE. - By: K.OWARE - Hamburg  |
Once upon an incredibly short weekend, I went with the missus to the Tema Community One Market to shop for dry fish fingerlings (Keta schoolboys), fresh cow hide (wele) and some fresh vegetables for a meal of Savanna “TZ', see?
The missus seemed to know her way around and we were done with the task in minutes.
About a month later, I ventured back to the place alone and found myself trapped deep in the Labyrinth of Crete!
Even a veteran bush ranger armed with a state of the art compass of the future will get hopelessly lost in that market if he is entering the place for the first time:
A labyrinthine maze of needle-narrow passage ways form a very complex network of connecting routes through the vast expanse of stalls and storerooms selling everything with a name.
So hemmed in is this vast but stuffy commercial enclave, that a first time visitor is easily gripped by a feeling of claustrophobia.
So narrow are the passageways through the market that two adults cannot walk abreast through them.
The next time you are in town, visit the place and see things for yourself. It is unbelievable, Jomo.
Absolutely unbelievable. The Lord forbid, but should the kind of fires which are sweeping through markets across the country ever occur at the Tema Community One Market when the place is busy, talking of a possible catastrophe would be an understatement.
There is no way any fire engine can get into the heart of that market place save it were preceded by a fire-proof bulldozer with hydraulic wheels, whatever that might be!
In the event of a fire, it would be practically impossible to get out of the place, not with hundreds of people trying to stampede through those connecting fairy tunnels.
There are no emergency exits in this huge potential trap.
The Abossey Okai automobile spares market at Kaneshie is another national commercial death trap.
If the market has been spared a major fire to date, it is probably because the good Lord Himself would not be able to stand the likely scale of its devastation if one occurred there.
The market fires which keep breaking out across the country are often attributed to electrical faults.
If that is the case, I keep asking myself why the central government, local government authorities, the Fire Service and the Electricity Company cannot engage in a bit of skull scratching and come out with a solution? Strangely enough, the fires occur only at night, see?
For the umpteenth time, the Kantanmanto market in Accra exploded in massive tongues of fire reaching out for the late night sky on Monday.
Big bonfires were made of colossal amounts of goods and cash in hundreds of shops.
The Kantamanto Market is not your ordinary market: It is not all the seniour civil servants, pastors, sophisticated looking con-men and swindlers, and even corporate executives you see in dark suits who bought the stuff from Marks and Spencer, Jomo: Some bought their suits from this famous Market off Liberty Avenue.
In an election year, you can expect politicians to play pscho-poker with such a disaster.
The fire broke out late at night but politicians from the NDC and the NPP were at the scene in minutes to sympathize with traders wailing as if the apocalypse had come. Continued
The missus seemed to know her way around and we were done with the task in minutes.
About a month later, I ventured back to the place alone and found myself trapped deep in the Labyrinth of Crete!
Even a veteran bush ranger armed with a state of the art compass of the future will get hopelessly lost in that market if he is entering the place for the first time:
A labyrinthine maze of needle-narrow passage ways form a very complex network of connecting routes through the vast expanse of stalls and storerooms selling everything with a name.
So hemmed in is this vast but stuffy commercial enclave, that a first time visitor is easily gripped by a feeling of claustrophobia.
So narrow are the passageways through the market that two adults cannot walk abreast through them.
The next time you are in town, visit the place and see things for yourself. It is unbelievable, Jomo.
Absolutely unbelievable. The Lord forbid, but should the kind of fires which are sweeping through markets across the country ever occur at the Tema Community One Market when the place is busy, talking of a possible catastrophe would be an understatement.
There is no way any fire engine can get into the heart of that market place save it were preceded by a fire-proof bulldozer with hydraulic wheels, whatever that might be!
In the event of a fire, it would be practically impossible to get out of the place, not with hundreds of people trying to stampede through those connecting fairy tunnels.
There are no emergency exits in this huge potential trap.
The Abossey Okai automobile spares market at Kaneshie is another national commercial death trap.
If the market has been spared a major fire to date, it is probably because the good Lord Himself would not be able to stand the likely scale of its devastation if one occurred there.
The market fires which keep breaking out across the country are often attributed to electrical faults.
If that is the case, I keep asking myself why the central government, local government authorities, the Fire Service and the Electricity Company cannot engage in a bit of skull scratching and come out with a solution? Strangely enough, the fires occur only at night, see?
For the umpteenth time, the Kantanmanto market in Accra exploded in massive tongues of fire reaching out for the late night sky on Monday.
Big bonfires were made of colossal amounts of goods and cash in hundreds of shops.
The Kantamanto Market is not your ordinary market: It is not all the seniour civil servants, pastors, sophisticated looking con-men and swindlers, and even corporate executives you see in dark suits who bought the stuff from Marks and Spencer, Jomo: Some bought their suits from this famous Market off Liberty Avenue.
In an election year, you can expect politicians to play pscho-poker with such a disaster.
The fire broke out late at night but politicians from the NDC and the NPP were at the scene in minutes to sympathize with traders wailing as if the apocalypse had come. Continued
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