In memoriam, a street named Ollenu
Like all good intention that Ghanaians have, the street-naming exercise was meant to bring some sanity into Ghana’s physical address system. But as is usual with us, we know how to ‘undo’ things in our own way resulting in more chaos instead of the order the exercise was supposed to bring.
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And so it came to pass that one fine afternoon, hungry and moving out of my office in search of lunch, I noticed that I no longer work at Number 9 Ollenu Street in East Legon (another unannounced change of name for Shiashie—the name the natives have for their habitat but rather on Number 9 Asmara Street.
Thus pronounced dead and not even to be remembered, Ollenu Street without recourse to its relatives, loved ones, mourners and sympathisers was buried as an ‘unclaimed corpse’ by city authorities with its grave not ‘unmarked’ but engraved as Asmara Street. Ollenu Street is deleted from memory forever!
At least an affidavit sworn to by the dead Ollenu Street formalising its change of nomenclature to Asmara Street will be in order! I am sure the famous late Justice Ollenu, a native of La, under whose jurisdiction Shiashie falls, and who perhaps the street was named after, would the legal luminary he is, approve of that.
Curious to find out which other streets suffered this ignomy, I decided to look around what else had changed around me in the ‘street-naming’ ‘renaming/rechristening’ exercise. Was I surprised? Exotic names have sprung up all over the place!
President Mahama, thanks for the fiat on streetnaming, we now live and work in places we never knew existed! Perhaps in the name of Pan-Africanism or is it African unity, the crook and crannies of Shiashie are now swamped with such names as Lilongwe Avenue (capital of Malawi, spelt Lilongwa at one end of the same street), Libreville Street and Link (half tarred street and untarred link), Kampala Avenue, accosted by Zaire Street (a strange appellation as so far there are only African capital cities that seem to reign supreme as street names here and worse still Zaire when the country is now known as Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.
The Zaire Street used to be Oyarifa Road! Then comes Bathur Street (Is it in reference to Bathurst, now Banjul, capital of the Gambia?)
In all these there seem to be some confusion as one struggles not only to come to grips with the change of names of known places as well as trying to know what is an avenue, a road or a street.
Again, if a road, street, avenue crosses another road, street or avenue; does the continuation bear the same name? For example if Asmara Street abuts to Lilongwe Street, does the street after Lilongwe Street still bear the name Asmara or it is another street altogether?
At the other end, are untarred, decrepit, bushy and non-descript roads named after some African capitals whose citizens would feel embarrassed with the association of their capitals with such roads.
Such roads as Nouackhott (capital of Mauritania) Road come to mind. This road it seems is destined to show disrespect to whoever it is named after as it was called Sergeant Adjetey Road.
Sergeant Adjetey, who together with Corporal Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey laid down their lives in the 28th February 1948 Crossroads ex-servicemen uprising that changed the destiny of Ghana and quickened the fight for Independence.
Somehow, somewhat the usual Ghanaian dose of fun and comedy is not missing in the streetnaming exercise after all. Somewhere in a street corner, the municipal authorities found it wise to retain the name of the lane known as Okro Mouth Close.
Yes Okro Mouth, check it out in the Keta Municipality! And of course in the same municipality is Gavivina Street (makes me proud because I can associate it with my roommate from secondary school to university who bears the name!)
Thank you Keta Municipality for raising my roommate, my pal, my buddy to such a high pedestal, especially as he comes from the Municipality!
God be with you Ollenu Street, RIP Ollenu Street. Goodbye Sgt Adjetey Road. Rest in peace! Long live Okro Mouth Lane, Long live Gavivina Street!
The writer is the Editor of African Agenda Magazine.