End this disorder

Throughout history, beautiful and mighty buildings have depicted the levels of development of a state, community or society.

Through archaeological findings, we can appreciate some of the rich cultures of the ancient world.

In Ghana, the forts and castles and other buildings such as mosques and palaces testify to the once flourishing trade between the indigenous people and traders from Europe.

This suggests that humans have, over the years, associated complex beautiful structures with their level of development and wealth. For this reason, whenever humans congregate as a society, they consciously or unconsciously put up beautiful edifices as resources would allow.

Over the years, the leadership of the country has made efforts to leave behind some edifices. These are partly constructed with the resources of the country, while others have been built with the support of foreign governments and international bodies.

The Chinese government helped this country with the National Theatre; India built for us the Ministry of Defence building, the United States supported us with the Mallam Interchange and the George Walker Bush Highway (N1), among many others from various foreign governments.

Apart from strengthening bilateral relations, these structures are also to beautify our country.

Unfortunately, however, it appears the aesthetic aspect of putting up these structures is not being realised, as these edifices rather make our cities more dirty. The concrete medians of major roads have all been plastered with ugly notices. In addition, our edifices have been soiled with all manner of materials.

Last Tuesday, the Daily Graphic drew attention to how some of these structures have been defaced. It was observed at the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange, the Mallam Overpass and the Ako Adjei Flyover that the structures and the concrete pillars supporting them were awash with unapproved and worn-out and fresh promotional materials. They include posters of political parties, church programmes and events and travelling and job opportunities.

As if this is not irritating enough, our towns and cities are inundated with unauthorised billboards, directional signs and signboards. At times it is irritating, difficult and dangerous when one is driving and comes to a junction flooded with notice boards. It is impossible to see clearly and this has resulted in numerous accidents in our society.

Somehow, a few weeks ago the city authorities in Accra started dismantling some of these signposts. This is a good move and we urge the authorities to go all out to rid society of these ugly scenes.

We at the Daily Graphic are, however, at a loss as to why the authorities cannot deal with those who post unauthorised bills. These posters bear names, pictures and/or contact numbers. How can’t the people responsible be confronted to clean their mess? Perhaps it is just a sign that there is no will on the part of the authorities, for where there is a will, there is a way.

A story is told of a man who returned home from work and found, to his surprise and anger, that publicity bills had been posted on his newly painted iron gate. He just called the contact number and when the culprit appeared, he gave him a brush and other materials and ordered him to repaint the gate.
Would the city authorities take a cue from this?