Is there lockdown on Kasoa Road?
The Graphic sounded the alarm on its front page yesterday: Public Defy Lockdown in Accra, Kumasi. That was the headline. Accompanied by a photo from Tesano Junction, the story essentially confirmed what the headline said: people were defying the lockdown in huge numbers.
I was not surprised. I wrote in an earlier edition that knowing our tendency to break rules, the exemptions granted in the order would be abused. And so it has turned out to be.
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In the interest of research and fairness, I decided to see for myself in order to bring you an eyewitness report. I can confirm that indeed, the flavour is one of life as usual. The Kasoa road, which appears to harbour more traffic miscreants than anywhere else in the world, is living up to its reputation.
Roadblocks
Despite a number of roadblocks mounted by security personnel, the road is almost as full of vehicles as it is on normal days.
It was not like this last week. It means that people have tested the waters and found that they are not as deep or hot as feared, so Charlie, let’s go, they say to themselves. One must hasten to say that the majority of vehicles on the road are private vehicles; the people breaking the rules are not those who must necessarily go out to the neighbourhood shop to get some food supplies. These are people determined to break the rules because they can.
Diaries
As I have argued in these diaries, I think we need to reinforce the messages with clear explanations about why we are being asked to stay at home. Or wash our hands. The message has gone through that people must do these things but why they should do so is equally important.
The government needs to apply Communication for Change principles in order to ensure that its messages are correctly targeted and getting home.
As a people, we are used to doing things our own way. Party politics has made things worse because politicians believe that they need to mollycoddle the people in return for votes, so political parties outdo one another in pampering and bribing the people. Of course, I am not saying that government must treat people harshly but there is the need for firmness in making sure that we do the right things for the benefit of everybody.
In order to change attitude, people need motivation and there is no bigger motivation than keeping alive. Unfortunately, the messages to trigger the motivation may be either weak or non-existent.
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Remember that communication is not complete without feedback and the feedback now is showing that the message is not registering as strongly as it should.
To begin with, most of the underlying information is coming as part of the news through newspapers, radio, television or social media. You will be surprised, or maybe not, at the fact that most Ghanaians do not consciously consume any news at all.
My swift, unscientific straw poll shows that fewer than three in 10 Ghanaians make the effort to listen or watch the news. They hear it from second-hand sources. So as they watch their popular soap opera or drama, they may receive a message that says wash your hand or stay one metre away, but is that enough to motivate the audience to change their behaviour long term?
The government has to think very hard very quickly about what to do next because we have seen how this disease spreads in other countries. We don’t have the resources to respond like they have done in Europe. Our best bet is prevention and if the relaxed rules are not working, we may all have to endure a tougher call.