DOES GHANA NEED A NEW CAPITAL?

YES AND NO! Some years ago, Nigeria created Abuja to replace Lagos as its administrative capital. It seems it is serving them very, very well. Lagos had been overburdened and became popular with its "Go slow" traffic situation.

Some other countries, including Ghana have maintained their capitals over the years and have continuously tried to make adjustments to cope with changing times. It has been said that, "Rome was not built in a day". And it still stands tall and strong. What is the secret? It is to be noted that more than one hundred years ago, the colonialists changed the capital of the Gold Coast from Cape Coast to Accra.

Ghana has a choice to make. A serious discussion must therefore be carried out to ascertain what and how we want to cope with life in Accra and possibly other cities like Kumasi, in the next fifty years and beyond. "Time and tide waits for no man". Time to talk and act is now. Like our governance system which is now getting firmly rooted in multi-party democracy, we must move from fire-fighting, cosmetic and ad hoc measures to agreed-upon transparent strategic remedies to ameliorate the challenges of today and tomorrow, regarding life in our cities.

I believe many research projects have been done by our Universities and Research institutions on the issue under discussion. Let us go for these findings and make some sense out of them. They have been on the shelves and gathering dust for too long.

More than fifty-five years after Ghana's independence and with the numerous workshops and conferences, are we failing to advise ourselves with the motto of Mfantsipim School, "Dwen hwe kan" (literally translated - Be strategic about the future). Do we have to keep reminding ourselves of the challenges of water and sanitation, traffic jams, crime and general indiscipline one now experiences in our urban areas?

Future generations may not easily forgive us if we fail to act now. "A word to the wise is enough". The thousand mile journey also begins with a step.