Kwahu gears up for Easter festivities
Feverish preparations are underway along the Kwahu range for a memorable Easter period this year. From Obomeng right up to Pepease, banners can be found announcing one activity or the other lined up to mark this year’s Easter.
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Although it is an occasion celebrated by Christians worldwide, in Ghana, the people of Kwahu have become associated with Easter in view of their use of the period as a homecoming festival.
It is the time most sons and daughters come home to meet with families and friends, not only to make merry but initiate development projects and inaugurate completed ones.
Indeed a tour of the Kwahu Ridge by the Daily Graphic team over the weekend saw many private housing projects being completed or already completed, ostensibly to be opened by their owners during the Easter period, probably amidst some champagne popping and merrymaking.
And talking about merrymaking, beverage companies such as Accra Brewery Limited seem to have captured the whole Kwahu Ridge with the branding of various drinking spots that are sure to be flooded with revellers during the period.
The signage “‘Charlie’ Tradition is Calling! KWAHU 2016”, is club beer’s way of announcing its presence to merry makers.
A new dimension
Since 2005 when paragliding was introduced by the late Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, then Minister of Tourism, as one of the main events to mark the Easter festivities, the Odweanoma Mountain at Atibie has become one of the paragliding venues in the world, with the Ghana Tourist Authority and the then Ministry of Tourism and Modernisation of the Capital City ensuring that it is sustained.
The Kwahu West Municipal Assembly (KWMA) is this year introducing a new activity to showcase Ghanaian-made products and spice up the activities.
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This is a trade fair and exhibition to be held at Obuoba Village, a facility on the outskirts of Nkawkaw, the capital,which will attract a token gate fee.
Nkawkaw’s population according to the 2010 Housing and Population Census, stood at 61,785, making it the second biggest town in the Eastern Region. However, the growth rate of 2.7 per cent puts the current figure at 106,919.
According to the Municipal Coordinating Director, Mr Kenneth Osman, teams at both national and local levels are working to ensure that the trade fair and exhibition will become a success to further enhance the festivities.
He stated that individuals were also registering to have stands to exhibit their wares at the exhibition and added that Nkawkaw was now going to benefit from the Easter festivities.
“Formerly, Nkawkaw was only the beneficiary of the residue of the filth from the paragliding,” Mr Osman said.
Further preparations
To further boost the festivities, Mr Osman told the Daily Graphic that the Assembly was going to arrange for health personnel and ambulances to take care of medical casualties, while they were collaborating with the police to provide security at the fair grounds and maintain law and order.
The waste management department of the Assembly would also be on call to ensure environmental cleanliness during the Easter period so that the municipality will not be overwhelmed with filth as a result of the large number of people expected to throng the area.
Nkawkaw-Kumasi by-pass
What started as a small market along the by-pass is gradually blossoming into a fully fledged market, thus endangering the lives of both passengers and hawkers.
The by-pass, which was constructed to ease traffic in the Central Business District (CBD) of Nkawkaw, is witnessing an upsurge in the sale of earthenwares, mortars, bread and other items.
Yaa Dufie, a bread seller, said some of them were forced to relocate to the by-pass to eke a living because the bigger buses from both Accra and Kumasi used to stop in Nkawkaw, with passengers patronising their products, but with the construction of the by-pass the only solution is “for us to also relocate.”
She described business as good but pleaded with the municipal assembly to find an alternative place at the by-pass for them.
Expected gridlock at by-pass
In view of the expected gridlock at the by-pass during the four-day Easter festival, the municipal assembly, in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service, will station personnel at the by-pass for 24 hours each day to ensure the free flow of traffic.
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According to Mr Osman, those found impeding traffic flow will be sanctioned.
He, however, indicated that as a long-term measure, the Assembly had initiated plans to procure some land at the by-pass, where all vehicles that would want to stop would branch off in order not to impede traffic flow on the main road.