The Keta tidal waves, said to have displaced several thousands of residents and deluged several houses, has become topical, and rightly so.
This is because of the human lives and livelihoods involved, and fears that, unless a quick intervention is made by government, more lives and livelihoods will be threatened.
We can therefore understand the tons of frenzy and volumes of political noise accompanying the ill wind that has consistently hit this part of the nation.
Political noise
Unfortunately, a group that had all the opportunity to intervene in the last thirty or more years, but fiddled with the glaring calamity, now thinks the best thing to do is to find fault with how others are handling the situation. But it is also normal for the government in power, which is currently facing the political effects of the gargantuan negligence that has resulted in the worsening plight of residents, be defensive for obvious reasons.
So, instead of engagement and consensus on how do we do it for the sake of our brothers and sisters who are languishing in agony, our political leaders are engaged in political noise making.
Clearly passive actors in our Parliament who ought to be united in this national tragedy are interestingly at each other’s throat, while the sweat needed to secure some modest hope for residents thicken, with its nagging political propaganda.
The local political leaders who must be at the centre of managing the crisis also seem to have unfortunately joined the people’s partisan representatives in Parliament in making noise and lodging complaints. But common sense dictates that just a passionate appeal to non-state actors to support a worthy cause like they have been supporting other national tragedies can mollify the situation.
Traditional authorities
In the opinion of the Daily Statesman, the conspicuous silence of the traditional communities in the affected areas is also worrying. This is because this is a not a party affair, but a phenomenon which, like wildfire, is spreading across our coasts from East to West as we industrialise and lawfully tamper with nature.
While it is too early yet to rule out any meaningful and touching statement from our revered leaders, it is our hope that because Ghana is one nation with one destiny, we use the Keta tragedy as a lesson to bury that culture of inveterate politics that undermines development.
That is also aside of the fact that some of the traditional authorities in Ghana usually decide to sit aloof as our beaches are being degraded, and centuries-old water basins and lagoons are also being turned into garbage dumps or sand-winning sites.
We want to join all decent-minded Ghanaians in imploring the government to step in with a major intervention for the sake of the perishing lives and livelihoods.
At the same time, we would also appeal to our traditional authorities to rediscover their roles as custodians of our natural resources and heritage, and help in protecting them for both the current and unborn generations.
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