I took my almost 86 year old mom, to see the Doctor as part of the processes for her normal checkups last Monday. 

It has been raining for some time now in Accra and a section of the main road from Kasoa to Budumburam had been closed off to traffic and so back streets are the only way, one can go to certain areas close to Budumburam with a vehicle. 

Instead of the local assembly ensuring that these alternative routes are made motorable, they have not done anything meaningful about them. 

Usually, as is the standard practice in road construction, it is the duty of the contractor to make alternative routes available to motorists when the need for diversion occurs. 

The local assembly authority also has  a responsibility to ensure that such diversions are done taking into account the safety and health of the people travelling on those streets or roads as well as the communities through which the streets passes through, especially in terms of dust suppression.

Portions along the alternative streets from my mom’s place to an area close to Kasoa where one can join the main Kasoa- Cape Coast Highway, had flooded and sedans could hardly pass through. 

My mom was so afraid that the vehicle that was bringing her to Kasoa, could be involved in an accident such that she lost appetite and could not continue to eat her food.  Exactly a week earlier I also had a similar frustrating experience when travelling to the Western Region. 

It took us two hours to cover a short distance between an area called Fan Ice to just a little beyond Budumburam.  All what was required was for the use of rocky material to fill a portion of the diverted road to enable traffic to flow smoothly but this was not done. 

On our return journey to Accra, nothing has still been done about it and we spent two hours again to cover that same short distance and one begins to wonder why the local authority leaders should be paid their monthly salaries.

Yesterday, there was a news item about the traffic that had built up along a stretch of Accra Kumadi highway between Sapeiman and Toman. 

Apparently the stretch was so deplorable that perhaps it was worse than what I encountered on the Accra –Cape Coast road. 

The road engineer whose duty it is to ensure the right thing is done by the contractor, apparently failed to do his job.  In a country where people charged with responsibility by the state, fail to do their job and are not held accountable, this is one of the results we are going to experience, on a frequent basis. 

There is a certain culture of someone else should do it and it is not helping our national developmental effort. 

We have this tendency for let us leave it to go.  Instead of citizens taking on people on authority to help correct things, everybody is afraid to tackle the problem, due to fear and as long as this attitude remains, people in authority will continue to act with impunity. 

If there is no threat of shame or embarrassment or loss of job, nothing will happen.  One of the issues I have decided to take the local assemblies on, is the proliferation of shops along streets without any thought for pedestrian walk ways. 

Pedestrians are always compelled to walk close to speeding vehicles because there are no pavements for them to use. 

What will be painful is seeing something that you know is wrong but deciding not to do anything about it and you become a victim of the problem, or someone close to you becomes a victim of it. 

Let us begin to be citizens and not spectators as President Bush once said and reiterated by President Akufo-Addo.  God bless.

By Laud Kissi-Mensah

TEMA is a city of mysteries. When someone dies, chances are that the person will resurrect and shame the devil. Come to the harbour city and you’d meet a few Jesuses of Nazareth and of course Kwame Korkorti.

Because people in Tema are used to dying and resurrecting after three days, when someone dies, it is important that the person himself go round town to announce his obituary before people can believe he is really dead and wouldn’t wake up and cause commotion.

When the infamous, spine-chilling Madam High Heels died in Tema a few years back, she announced her death in a rather grand style. She toured all primary schools in Tema, wearing a white dress and high-heeled pair of footwear. For more than eight weeks she terrorised school children. “I saw her with my own eyes,” one kid swore. “She wore high-heel shoes and her walkings was very stylish.”

“She entered into our classroom and then vanished when we screamed,” another recounted.

It was rumoured that only children could see the ‘ghost on strike’ because they are ‘holy.’ So they could see the celebrated ghost which was on tour allegedly searching for its lost daughter among school children.

In one of the schools, one male teacher nearly defecated when his class children began screaming in terror. A stampede was in progress and the terrified teacher who did not see the ghost apparently because he wasn’t holy, did not know which direction to flee. And if he had the misfortune of meeting the Madam right in his way, it could be disastrous for his health and future.

“Where is it?” he cried out to the kids. “It is near you!” they shouted back. That was enough to loosen his bowels.

The next stop was Teshie where the Madam visited. It was a real challenge to both staff and pupils. It was a real race as both teachers and kids defied all odds and took off in different directions. But it was the head teacher who impressed everybody. No one gave him a dog’s chance but he outran both his contemporaries and the younger generation.

Actually, he proved to all that he was not headmaster for nothing. He also proved that under certain circumstances you have to abandon the school children and seek your own salvation. Each for himself. Man no fool!

Apparently one kid had heard something like someone walking with high-heeled shoes and raised the alarm. That was enough for the speed.

Soon after the Madam rounded-off her tour came the era of the Black Cat. Don’t get scared, Black Cat isn’t really a cat and does not intend to be. The Cat is in fact a human being. He was commissioned by the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) to arrest floating drivers.

The emergence of floating drivers became a phenomenon when the lorry station which was first located near the Community One market was relocated remotely beyond the Mankoadze roundabout.

It caused great inconvenience to travelers because getting to the new station demanded some miles of walking in some cases. It turned out that some LT and mini-bus drivers took advantage of the situation, turned coat and began floating like butterflies picking passengers by the roadsides.

The GPRTU executive lamented the new development. The floaters were getting all the jobs and weren’t paying station fees. They were also allegedly dodging tax because they had turned renegade and were under nobody’s control. They complained to TMA and the Black Cat was hired to solve the problem using strong-arm and red-eye.

Black Cat is a strong, burly, barrel-chested fellow who has quite a reputation in the city. He seemed just right for the job. He headed a task force that moved silently around Community One in a taxi or a minibus targeting floating drivers and catching them for disciplinary action.

Sometimes, it resulted in a real chase when the recalcitrant drivers took off in escape. It was always a spectacle; dangerous sensation of screeching, weaving, dodging and aponkye braking as they raced, one escaping, the other furiously pursuing.

It was just miraculous that accidents did not occur in the misadventures. Sidewalks were trespassed by the offending drivers who either swung precariously to the left or to the right to avoid the Cat, with pedestrians screaming in terror and taking cover.

Residents of Tema became concerned about the dangerous pursuits and complained. Nobody minded them. Then one day Black Cat caught one driver but the man decided to resist arrest. Apparently he was too “tough copper” and decided to defy the might of the human cat.

A fight ensued and soon a capacity crowd gathered to witness it. In the course of it, it became clear that the driver was a poor match for Black Cat, and sooner or later the Cat’s back would touch the ground in defeat.

Sensing danger, it was alleged that Black Cat drew a knife and whum! whum! whum! Adzeiii-i-I!

News of the death of the driver reverberated the length and breadth of the harbour city. The rumour came in different versions. “Black Cat stabbed the man twice in the neck, twice in the stomach and once in the nose,” someone told me that day. Others said different things about the incident. What was, however, certain was that the driver had died.

The news incensed fellow drivers who stormed the offices of the TMA and ravaged it, burning a bus (allegedly belonging to Black Cat), smashing windscreens and causing pandemonium and destruction. The quiet made residents from all the communities converge on Community One to see what the hell was going on.

The death of the driver had precipitated a disturbance and the security agents had a tough time calming frayed nerves. Then something happened. The dead man was seen roaming in town and feeling good himself. He had resurrected.

What! Tema really is a mystery city.

 This article was first published on Saturday May11, 1996