Unintended consequences

For years, I had a list of things that I was certain, once we could get them in our villages, our lives would be truly transformed.

I refer not only to my village or town, but to any village in whatever part of Ghana, and this magic list of things required to modernise the village in rural Ghana would probably be identical.

The order of priorities might be different but the list would most likely go something like this: electricity, pipe-borne water, telephone, tarred road, health clinic, a well-built and well-equipped school and then, a host of other things according to the local flavour.

A community centre always comes up and I might add people don’t like the word village, they prefer town, but that is another story.

The thinking is the provision of these things will spell development and improve the quality of life for the people and will slow down the rate at which the young people go to the urban towns and cities at the first opportunity.

Once these things have been provided, we all believe we can claim to be developed and if you have moved out into a big town and are thriving, you wouldn’t be feeling guilty about those left behind in the village.

In any big town or city in Ghana or indeed in cities around the world you will find those who have made it out of such villages congregating to find ways to help those still in the village, provide amenities and generally upgrade the quality of life in the villages they came from. 

Not possible

Now, I have discovered that it is not possible to ever say that the assignment has been completed and you can ever sign off on the last thing on the list.

The provision of each item generates a new set of problems and a new list.

When we got electricity, we all jubilated, our village has finally moved out of darkness and into light.

We welcomed the arrival of all the things that come with electricity, including a hairdressing salon and a frozen food shop in the village.

Then the people from the village who had moved out and lived in the big towns started getting messages from their elderly parents: it is not enough to have lights, what about a refrigerator and can we have a regular supply of soft drinks and a few bottles of beer please.

Now that there is electricity, you can’t really get away with not buying a television set for your mother in the village.

Once she has a television set, it means she can see the type of life that is led by people all around the world and you had better hold yourself in readiness to being asked for an upgrade of her kitchen, just like what is shown in one of the telenovelas that has become her favourite show.

The arrival of electricity in the village means you now have to pay two sets of electricity bills, yours in the town where you live and one for the home in the village, plus two sets of electrical gadgets, a refrigerator and drinks. 

Jubilated

When the 12-kilometre road linking the village to the main road was tarred, we all jubilated.

Our village was finally linked to the modern world and people would no longer have to wait for hours at the junction of the main road and the 12-kilometre journey that sometimes took 40 minutes now took 10 minutes.

There were taxis on the road at all times of the day and night and the bus service in the nearest big town was extended to the village.

The red film of dust that used to cover the houses along the dirt road in the village disappeared.

Now with travelling transformed, people who used to spend their entire lifetimes in the village and never ventured out, simply jump onto a bus or taxi and go to the nearby big town and see all manner of things in shops that take their fancy.

Their wants and desires get multiplied and diversified and their children outside the village discover they have to spend more money on them than before.

Back on the newly tarred street in the village, the first vehicular accident has just occurred.

That is of course not surprising, since the young people stroll along the tarred street with no consideration for passing cars and the drivers also now zip along the tarred street at very high speeds without the encumbrance of stones and dust or mud on the road, the accidents are inevitable.

The next thing we know, there is agitation for speed rumps to be put on the road.

For years I was among those who argued that the extension of a telephone service to the village would be the most important thing among the development indicators.

Mobile telephony has catapulted us dramatically into the 21th century as far as telephones go.

Twenty years ago, most people in the village had never seen a telephone before, never mind made a phone call.

Today everybody in the village has a mobile phone and we are celebrating the joys that have come with our becoming part of the interconnected global village. 

Two sets

Those who now pay two separate sets of electricity bills have become accustomed to paying two sets of phone bills as well and making sure data is available for aunties in the village to browse the Internet.

Thanks to WhatsApp, you can’t escape the gossip from the village and there will be daily calls to check on you and give reports on the health of ailing relations.

Once upon a time, you got a message that you needed to send some money urgently.

You had some time to find someone to give the money to, or a few years ago, you could plead you hadn’t been able to go to the lorry station to use the courier system to send the money.

Now thanks to Mobile Money and to Bawumia’s famous interoperability, if you haven’t sent the money within 15 minutes after the request has been made, you would get a call asking if there was something wrong.

Photos will be sent of an uncle lying ill in bed.      

Now you cannot miss out on any funeral donation and plead you hadn't heard about the death.  

A new crime has entered the list a politician can commit. He doesn’t pick his calls.

It is not enough that you buy a smartphone for your constituency executives and any foot soldier of your acquaintance, God help you if you don’t answer a call whenever and however many times you are called.

You won’t admit it publicly, but there will be days when you will be secretly wishing you were back in the days when phones were not such ubiquitous items.  

I wonder how many more examples there are of solutions to problems triggering completely unintended consequences.