Zongo To Get Facelift:  Are We For It?

It takes two to tango so the adage goes. But it takes a visionary to develop Zongo. Zongo is a Hausa name or word for a slum or ghetto. Over the years Zongos have been left and forgotten. Viewed by many as a no go area, gem-infested, dirty and filthy, unsanitary and unhygienic. It’s crime prone and overpopulated.

Ghana like many countries in the world has its slums too that spread across most of its big cities. Popular amongst them are, Nima, Sodom and Gomorrah, Maamobi, Agbobloshie, Suame Magazine, New Takoradi, Ashaiman, Fadama and Kojokrom.

Rising population begets slum dwellers. It’s estimated that 1 billion people worldwide live in slums and the figure is projected to grow to two billion by 2030, according to the United Nations.

The United Nations agency for habitation UN-HABIATAT defines slum as a rundown area of a city characterised by standard housing, squalor, and lacking in tenure security. The UN said, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the developing world between 1990 and 2004

But rising population, the UN notes has caused the number of slum dwellers to rise significantly. The UN further said that the number of slum dwellers in developing countries statistically increased from 689 million in 1990 to 880 million in 2014.

Perhaps it’s this rising populations coupled with other factors that informed Ghana’s President Akufo-Addo to create the Ministry of Inner City and Zongo Development. The new ministry, first of its kind is to handle Zongo affairs. It also intends to give slums across the country face -lifts, according to the sector minister Boniface Abubakar Saddique.

Mr. Saddique told a journalist in an interview that the ministry is mandated to undertake some special programmes including; infrastructure and sanitation enhancement; economic empowerment, social development, cultural promotion and security and crime control.

“One of the critical areas of concern for the social cohesion in the country is the developments taking place in the inner cities and the zongos, hence the need for its establishment,” Mr. Saddique noted. Another area he spoke about was infrastructure.

He said infrastructure in these communities is poor and government would take steps to improve upon them through the Ministry, adding the money that would be allocated for the Ministry will not be used for on social and traditional engagements.

“Development over years had been discriminatory with residents in the Zongo communities neglected. And I think in my view the president has to be commended for establishing the ministry.”

How would this work without resistance from the dwellers.

Over the years, attempts by many governments to develop slum areas across the world have faced resistance from slum dwellers. A classic example is the Kibera slum in Kenya. Residents have gone to court to stop the government for building road through the community, bulldozing schools and clinics and thousands of homes. Kibera, which is home for 700, 000 people, is Africa’s biggest slum.

Governments in India have also faced resistance from residents of the Dharavi slum time and again. Residents have opposed attempts to develop the area. According to reports business in Dharavi thrives like an oil town. The community has an informal economy with an estimated $1 billion annual turnover.

In the 1960’s Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah attempted to develop Nima but that dream got botched even though the residents had been paid off. I’m told Nkrumah even adopted Nima as his constituency all aimed at developing and beautifying the place. It’s believed residents in the community refused to be resettled in Madina --an area close to Ghana’s premier university- University of Ghana, not too far from the Airport City and also close to East Legon-- Ghana’s most affluent community and not absolutely not too far from famous Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout—the biggest in West Africa.

Nima, for example, until about mid 90’s had no clinic, no streets, no playgrounds, and lacked other basic social amenities. The Kanda Highway built by President Rawlings grazed down a number of Homes. Back then we used to joke that when in Nima tread cautiously else you might end up walking straight into one’s room. And I almost did that one hush afternoon when the path I was on led me to someone’s door. It’s my hope that the new wind of change will affect the communities in a more positive way.

But unlike Nima and Kibera in Kenya where residents resisted governments’ infrastructure development, residents of Orang Town in Pakistan wanted it but their governments neglected them. This is how a journalist put it in one of UN reports. “Fed up with living without proper sanitation, residents of Orang Town gave up waiting for government to install sewer and built them by hand themselves.”

Orang Town now has nearly 8, 000 streets and lanes have sewage pipes—all put in by residents.

Ciudad Neza in Mexico City (with a population1.2 million,) was rated as the world’s largest mega-slum in 2006. I don’t know her current status in terms of ratings. But the story in that community is also a positive one. Today, Cuidad has become more like suburb courtesy of the great efforts by the residents to build a community and deliver public services.

The world has five biggest slums. They are Khayelitsha, Cape Town in South Africa, with 400, 000 population, Dharavi Mumbai India with 1 million people, Cuidad Neza Mexico city populated by 1.2 million people and Orang Town in Pakistan, Asia’s largest slum has a population of 2.4 million.