Why can’t we use our Army Corps of Engineers for Civil projects?

One of the tragedies of Africa is that our education system is not linked in anyway with our development. It is like we are interested only in giving paper credentials to Individuals, after filling their brains with useless facts that are totally unusable in contributing meaningfully to national development!

Sadly, we continue to maintain the same curriculum the colonialists left behind which they designed to produce certificated flunkeys who are trained never to entertain original thoughts but are literate enough to serve the colonial interests of the Metropolitan Powers.

Unfortunately, it is the same system that makes our so-called educated elite giddy with excitement and makes them feel important and pompous!

A question any rationale being will ask is: what is the point of having an educational system which does not teach a people how to feed, clothe or house themselves?

Sixty or so years after our ostensible independence, we are still unable to provide the most basic of life’s essentials for ourselves without foreign help or assistance, yet we are wont to roll out the big drums and dance ourselves silly in celebration of our sham independence!

Today, I experienced another of those infuriating things that makes me wondered what exactly happened to make us normalized the abnormal in Africa!

Without a doubt, the Accra to Cape Coast road which passes through Kasoa, is the most important road in the Republic of Ghana.

Aside from linking the capital with the Central and vitally-important Western Regions, the road is also part of the Trans-ECOWAS Highway.

What this means is that it is an international route for which every single vehicle which enters Ghana pays a surcharge.

Apart from that income, there are toll booths dotted on the road which generate additional income.

With all these considerations in my mind, one will expect the authorities to take good care of the road, if only to ensure that the international image of the country is not tarnished.

Alas, no one cares!

A little rain and vast stretches of the road become inoperable as mudslides and whatnots block the road, as happened today!

With all our education, it is quite shameful that we care so little about the society and environment in which we live.

Many of us have traveled outside the country and see how our colleagues in other lands keep their countries’ infrastructures in top shape. We went to the same schools with these people. We still attend the same seminars and conferences with them. Why do we refuse to learn things, apart from the inane (Halloween, Valentines, Father Christmas etc) from them?

Example: The United States of America has large pool of highly trained manpower, yet the country still makes use of its Army Corps of Engineers to build vitally important Civil projects.

Why can’t we do the same thing? Why can’t the Ghana Army Corps of Engineers be drafted to maintain such an important and strategic National Asset like the Accra to Cape Coast Road?

Answers, anyone?

These are information about the US Army Corps of Engineers and some of its projects:

1. https://www.nae.usace.army.mil/.../Navigation/
2. https://www.usace.army.mil/.../Project-Information/
3. https://www.usace.army.mil/.../Project-Information/

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Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ is a writer and author.