As I type this post, the lights in my single room are all off or as we say in Ghana, I am experiencing "lights off". I can barely make out the end of my nose in the semi darkness as my old lantern struggles to keep up. My eyes hurt as my lungs are filled with the fumes from the lantern. The heat is unbearable as beady sweat awash my body and unfriendly mosquitoes run amok and condemn me to eternal torment for the night. As I sit at my creaky table the Ayigbe carpenter made for me some months back, I cannot but wonder how we got here as a nation.
I must type fast as the indicator bar on my smartphone turns yellow warning me that I either pour out my thoughts fast or lose the opportunity when the phone finally goes off.
Let me allow my young mind the privilege to wonder some few years back. The year was 1998 and Ghana was experiencing one of the most severe energy crisis in recent history. According to the energy "experts" and overnight social commentators who knew all the panacea to most (if not all) of our national issues, the crises was caused by a fall in the water level at the major (only?) hydroelectric dam the Akosombo Dam. I was a teenager at that time and I was preparing to write my BECE (the same one my father had warned me to pass or consider a career in carpentry).
During those times, the lights went off at will as if some disgruntled worker at the electricity company had a bone to pick with management and had decided to vent his grievances on us poor consumers. For several parts of the capital, Accra, people went without electricity for weeks on end and I believe most of them remembered with nostalgia life in the villages which were not connected to the national grid. Stories were told of people carrying their TV sets from one part of town to another to watch popular TV shows.
Cue the politicians; off they went with their criticisms (especially from the opposition parties, who were practically calling for the heads of those in power) and the promises from government about resolving the crises in the soonest possible time and that never again shall we sleep in darkness, read books with lanterns all in the name of an energy crises.
Now, the battery of my phone is almost done; I had better finish this quickly before it goes off and my ideas with it. Fast forward time, and it is the year 2014, some 16 years later and yes, you are right, we are facing similar situation all over again!! Before our very eyes, we are seeing history repeat itself if not in a more severe form than before.
Whatever happened to the promises the politicians made to us back then? I have come to understand that it is all what they call political talk, the one politicians make when they mount platforms and shout themselves hoarse like they were possessed by the spirits of a thousand zombies and then they forget when they get down the stage.
How have we as a nation planned towards the recurrence of such crises? Can't we see that we are going about in circles like lizards chasing its tails? Is this not the future they talked about back in the days? The same future they said was bright for the nation, where we will have constant supply of such a basic social utility like electricity? Oh, what happened to that bright future our fore fathers dreamt about for this dear nation?
I believe a lack of foresight, a comprehensive national developmental agenda and planning have contributed towards dimming that bright future; in a country where public office holders only think about themselves and their immediate families and party propaganda, should I be any surprised that we are encountering this energy crises all over again? How different are the next 16 years going to be from the past? Are we going to be solving problems of yesteryears all over again and do a complete round of our "one step forward, two steps backwards" dance? What sort of legacy are we going to leave future generations when we are long gone?
My phone is almost drained now ....I guess it is time to turn off the lantern and rest my bones on my raffia mat and muse over this country and hope that when a politician talks of a brighter future, it will at least be one that assures us constant supply of electricity!! Damn, the heat!!!
