Defacement of the City: Sit Up AMA!

Aside the heaps of filth that refuse collection agencies struggle to deal with on a daily basis, the aesthetic quality of the capital is under an increased threat each passing day, reeling under the scourge of indiscriminate pasting of posters.

Electricity poles, street posts, telecom and electricity transformers, walls of residences, bill boards, traffic lights, kiosks, containers, sign posts, bus stops and overhead bridges most especially have all not been spared of this scourge.

These posters come in "assorted" ranges from film posters – of predominantly Ghanaian and Nigerian origins – political party posters, crusade notices by churches, company advertisements; even job seekers and job owners jostle for space, not to talk of the herbal healers and loan companies. The landscape of any surface can best be described as chaotic to say the least.

And the amazing thing is, city authorities day-in and day-out go past this sad state of affairs without any action in this respect. The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) I am under no doubt, has regulations in their bye-laws to check what is turning out to be a messy and untidy capital.

The most hit areas by this scourge are our overhead bridges.
From the Shangri-La Overpass to the New and Old Achimota overheads, all the way to Nkrumah Circle Overpass, the Kanda Overpass and then to the Ako-Adjei Interchange, the overhead at Mile 7 – right in front of Peace Fm's former offices has not escaped the actions of the unscrupulous people who surreptitiously paste these posters under the cover of darkness.

Void of any formula and format, anyone with a poster and glue can paste posters all over the place with amazing impunity – pasting on existing posters has brought about an indiscriminate and free-for-all process that in the end worsens the extent of defacement. In the long run, the refuse collection agencies are forced to clean the torn pieces and yet people continue to paste. Question; "For how long shall this pertain?"

Any one hardly moving from one place to another within the capital without setting eyes on one poster or the other, which compromises the aesthetic quality of most flat surfaces around the whole place, the multi million dollar question stands as, "What are the city authorities doing to right this blatant wrong?"

The AMA might have to track and arrest the people who go round defacing our city, take punitive measures against them, maybe to serve as a deterrent to others, considering that the AMA cannot hold owners of the notices liable.

Bottom line is, the city is being defaced and something most definitely must be done, and quick.

Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban
newcguide@gmail.com/a;farsenal@yahoo.com