Editorial: Our Independence Will Be Meaningless If The Streetlights Are Not Kept On!

When Linda Obenewaa Akweley Ocloo assumed office as the Greater Accra Regional Minister, she criticised the non-functioning streetlights in the national capital, Accra, and instructed that the unfortunate development should be corrected as soon as practicable. Indeed, before making this political statement, media personnel had taken it upon themselves to highlight the need to keep the streetlights on during the night.

Because of the non-functioning nature of our streetlights, innocent Ghanaians are being attacked by criminals who, in most of the cases, snatch their mobile phones and other valuables from them at gun point. Apart from some of these crimes, driving on the streets of Accra and other cities in the country has also become a big problem for drivers.

The editorial team of The Chronicle, somewhere last year, witnessed an unfortunate situation on the N1 Highway near the Achimota Forest and Dimple Junction interchange.

A middle aged man, who claimed he could no more endure the financial problems he was facing, had gone to sit in the middle of the road at night for cars and vehicles to crash him to death. Since the streetlights along the Achimota Forest stretch of the N1 do not function, he nearly caused trouble for drivers using the road at the time. He was eventually rescued from the road by the drivers for free flow of traffic.

If a driver had indeed crashed the man to death, the offending driver would have been arraigned before court by now. The law enforcement agencies will certainly not question the city authorities for failing to keep the streetlights on, which resulted in the accident.

The Chronicle must, however, admit that since Linda Ocloo announced a 50-day timeline to restore street lights across the city, some of these ‘dead streetlights’ are gradually being resuscitated.

From the Tetteh Quashie Circle all the way to Aburi in the eastern region, most sections of the road are now lit. The same can be said about the N1 and other major roads in Accra. But much as this is welcome news, it is still not enough. Since Accra is the national capital and the first city in most of the cases to welcome first time visitors into our dear country, the streetlights should be functioning at all times.

The situation as it stands now, makes Accra look like a big village at night, which does not speak well of a country that prides itself as a lower middle income economy. Information we gathered in the past suggested that the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) were forcing the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to switch off the streetlights because electric bills paid by Ghanaians for them to be kept on, were nothing to write home about.

We hope the same demands are not being made today on the ECG, but if the IPPs are still insisting that the streetlights should be switched off, then the current government, which has overwhelming endorsement of Ghanaians, should find a way of dealing with the situation, which appears to be nationwide. It is useless for the country to spend huge sums of money to construct first class roads within our towns and cities with streetlights, and yet the latter will not be functioning.

This is the reason why we are calling on the authorities to sit up and ensure that all our streets are well lit at night. After sixty eight solid years of our independence from British colonial rule, we have come of age in ensuring that some of these basic amenities are provided for Ghanaians, otherwise the independence we so cherish and celebrated yesterday will become meaningless.

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