The ugly side of Soddom and Gomorrah

5/09/09
Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
MANY were those who heaved a sigh of relief when the government announced its intention to evict the more than 40,000 squatters of Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason is that people shared the government’s position that the squatters there are a danger to national security.
As the name connotes, Sodom and Gomorrah, located within the central business district of Accra, gives true meaning to the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, a communities that were destroyed by God because of their grave sins.
So in effect, whenever a community navigates towards the way of the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, that community is bound to face the ‘wrath’ of God or that of the government of the day.
The Ghana Sodom and Gomorrah, formerly called Old Fadama or Ayalolo, became a shelter for some displaced people from northern Ghana fleeing the Kokomba-Nanumba war in the 1980s. Ever since then, more people, mainly from the three regions of northern Ghana, have also joined the fray.
Intelligence reports indicate that the squatters, who are divided along political, ethnic and chieftaincy lines, illicitly acquire small arms and light weapons, which they use to attack one another at the least provocation.
They are also alleged to be smuggling the weapons to their people up north in breach of national security.
The recent clashes between people suspected to be supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and from the Abudu and Andani Gates at the Kokomba Market that resulted in the loss of four lives, gives credence to the porous security situation at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Police reports indicate that of the number of suspected criminals rounded up in police and army swoop at Sodom and Gomorrah some time past, a number of criminals were identified and some of them were later identified as armed robbers. The police found “wee” and cocaine on some of them. There have been occasions when wanted criminals, including murderers wanted by the police, have been arrested at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Rape and defilement are common occurrence at the slum.
A walk through the slum paints a picture of disorder, desperation and a bleak future. People virtually sleep in filth. The ramshackle wooden structures stand close to choked gutters.
There are no roads while the walkways are right in people’s homes or even rooms.
Interestingly, there are squatters who claim to own the land, because of the structures they have put up. They take rent from other squatters.
There are indeed some youth as old as 18 who were born and bred in the area. School is of no essence to the squatters, although they have a nursery that some single parents ‘dump’ their children there to relieve themselves of the burden of having to cater for them.
The slum has a large number of chop bars and beer bars. Marijuana (wee) and other narcotic drugs are sold and smoked in the open, with the young ladies competing with their male partners.
There are people who sell cooked food there under very unhygienic conditions, further complicating the precarious health situation there.
The disorderly nature of Sodom and Gomorrah makes it susceptible to fire outbreaks; the slum records not less three fire outbreaks in a year, which destroy lives and property.
Interestingly, hardly does the fire settle down than the squatters begin to reconstruct their burnt structures. The reason is that if they delay, other squatters will trespass.
Due to the almost non-existent roads, fire officers from the Ghana National Fire Service are not able to access the road to put out fire; they are forced under the circumstances to break into some of the structures to get to the fire, a situation that allows the fire to rage for hours.
Another worrying scenario is that the activities of the squatters of Sodom and Gomorrah obstruct work on the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP). The squatters dump solid waste into the lagoon, thus compelling the engineers working on the KLERP to use excavators to clear the waste at a huge cost to the state.
Some of the structures have been constructed at the banks of the lagoon. According to the engineers, the squatters threaten them anytime they speak against their indiscriminate disposal of solid waste.
The Director of the Metropolitan Public Health Department, Dr Simpson Boateng, in an earlier visit to the slum, reportedly said that the squatters would be evicted because their “persistent dumping of refuse and human excreta into the Korle canal by the squatters at Sodom and Gomorrah is undermining work on the KLERP”.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashietey, has indicated the government’s resolve to evict the squatters without any form of compensation or relocation. That is a bold decision. But the question many people are asking is whether the government has the political will to carry through this laudable exercise of nipping in the bud the security threat that the squatters of Sodom and Gomorrah pose to the nation.
It is the responsibility of the government to provide security to all Ghanaians, and that requires of the government to take decisive action to deal with any group of people who threaten national security.
The squatters are asking the government to relocate them somewhere, since they do not have any financial means to rent rooms in other parts of Accra. They are also not ready to go back to northern Ghana.
Some people have cautioned the government not to rush in evicting the squatters, since it could lead to the creation of smaller slums in parts of the city.
Human rights activists also feel that the government must of necessity try to relocate the squatters, since they have a right to shelter. They have blamed the government for allowing the people to stay there for long and assumed some right to their settlement there.
That argument is sound. But is the government bound to perform a task that it has not initiated, although the government could be said to have encouraged it by not acting fast?
It may not be out of place, though, if the government out of consideration finds a place to relocate the squatters, provided it has the means.
But the government could not be faulted in a way for evicting the squatters of Sodom and Gomorrah. But when is the axe going to fall?