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19.09.2014 Opinion

The Filthy Rich State Of Ghana

By Maame Bonsrah
The Filthy Rich State Of Ghana
19.09.2014 LISTEN

Our beloved country Ghana is blessed with rich natural and mineral resources; gold, diamond, manganese, oil, cocoa, hardwood just to name a few. As a people we have a rich culture and heritage championing the fight for a United Africa since the late 1950s.

We built dams, airports, universities, refineries, sea ports and impressive bridges. We educated people of high repute;KwegyirAggrey, Nkrumah, Mugabe and countless others, with the hope of driving Ghana and Africa as whole forward. In spite of all these Ghana has become a nation choking on its own filth. Our homes, gutters, rivers, parks and beaches are swarmed with filth.

It breaks my heart to see how we live; as sloths and 'polished mad' people, throwing rubbish out of our car windows and into the streets. Have we ever wondered where the trash goes? The gutters abhor our filth, refusing to swallow up the distasteful garbage strewn in it. The sea wants no part of it, washing ashore the rubbish we try to hide in its belly. The land is burdened with the heaps and heaps of glorified rubbish we dump on it.

We give no thought to our actions and we carefully tip toe past the infamous 'black polythene' bags filled with the gross of our human waste while all the same dressed in our Sunday best chanting 'Cleanliness is next to godliness'. Shame on us as a people! Shame on us as custodians of the Land. How I wish for the days of the feared 'Tancast' who would not tolerate filth in our homes.

What happened to the days of communal labour? When we took responsibility of the 'No Man's Land' and rid it of filth. Days before Zoomlion and overpaid waste management companies. Is this sense of apathy towards our environment a by-product of development? Is this irresponsible behavior towards our environment the result of urbanization?

There is just so much injustice anyone can take before they start to fight back and Mother Nature is fighting back. There is a global outcry about Global Warming and rising Sea Levels and desperate calls to preserve our environment, yet however loud this cry it seems to be drowned by the sound of our lumberjacks felling the trees in our forest. We are too busy choking on the fumes of burning tires and exhaust fumes from over aged vehicles to be concerned even remotely of this disastrous consequence.

Our farmers harvest plastic waste and our fishermen bring back their catch of plastic bottles and trash. Grown women bare their bottom in open places to defecate while men stand by gutters hiding their privates in mock dignity to undertake an undignified act in public. The irony!

Now who to blame? You! Not the government or dwarfs, you and I. Let's not be afraid to take responsibility. Let's promise ourselves to change. Environmental issues cannot be ignored because it affects all of us. It cuts through racial and political barriers. Sceptics say that we cannot really control what is happening to the Earth, just ask the dinosaurs. Religious folk also say 'The earth is not our home we are only passing through. Tis the end time. The end has begun!' (Ominous tune in background).

To the sceptics fortunately we are humans not dinosaurs and can reason and take action.We can in the very least prolong the time we have left by adopting a consciously Greener lifestyle. And to the religious folks, even though the Earth is merely a path to our eternal home when the path to your home becomes overgrown with weeds clear it lest the weeds harbor snakes which will bite you on your way home!

Stop littering, reuse plastics and please recycle. Let's all help to rid our Rich Country Ghana of filth.

Long live Ghana.

God Bless Ghana.

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