“Nothing About US without US” is an old political slogan used in various revolutions to rouse the people to participate in policy discussions.
It implies that the people and the representatives cannot and must not outsource political participation to the small band of politicians and their immediate followers because that clutch often forms an interest group that seeks its own welfare.
It is only by campaigning constantly for change that we can expand the boundaries of our democracy and create better conditions for ourselves.
If I had my own way, the following two campaigns would animate the political and media space for the coming year (instead of the mindboggling and interminably self-serving NDC-NPP quibbling that passes for debate and discussion in current Ghana).
Ban vehicle emissions
After buying fuel at a petrol station, a trotro bus sprayed a huge amount of thick black smoke into the faces of everyone within 30 meters radius, including a policeman at the next pump.
I half-jokingly suggested to the police officer to arrest the trotro driver. The policeman looked puzzled, and responded: “but every vehicle smokes” before leaving a trail of his own black smoke as he drove off.
In Ghana, so many vehicles emit fumes so much that people assume vehicle emissions were created alongside Adam and Eve.
It is a surprise that not even the Ghana Medical Association or even the Ghana Health Service has seen fit to mount a single campaign for the elimination of vehicle emissions knowing how harmful such fumes are to human beings.
As with the policeman in this story, most of us are ignorant about the harmful effects of vehicle fumes but they are killing people every day.
Vehicle fumes are a mix of three highly toxic gases, namely, carbon monoxide (Co), hydrocarbons (Hc) and oxides of Nitrogen (Nox). All of these gases acting on their own, and in combination, can and do kill.
We often wonder why there has been a sudden increase in the level of some of the most deadly diseases in recent years but the answer is at hand, or rather in the air around us.
The policeman at the gas station believed that all cars produce smoke, but although every combustion engine produces these gases, they are produced in greater quantity and more poisonously by badly maintained vehicles.
Meanwhile, ALL vehicles on our roads must have passed their roadworthy tests and no car with that DVLA certificate must smoke.
Once again, to put it bluntly, corruption is killing us. DVLA people issue certificates for vehicles they have not inspected or for vehicles that could not possibly be worthy, especially of our bad roads.
Let us campaign for fresh air and good health in 2014.
Change from GMT to Nigeria time
I have a suggestion which I know will be hard for many people to take because of entrenched thinking but please hear me out. The suggestion is that Ghana should leave the GMT time zone and join the likes of Nigeria on GMT+1.
This means that Ghana will gain an additional hour in the evening. Will it matter? Yes, it will make a huge difference.
The thought first came to me some years ago when I was in Banjul, the Gambian capital and realised that the sun did not go down till about 7.30 in the evening.
That was when it occurred to me that although The Gambia was in the same time zone with Ghana, that country was at the extreme western end of the GMT time zone, so it took more than an hour for the sun to travel from the start of the GMT to that point.
Recently, I was in Niamey, the capital of Niger and observed the same phenomenon. Niamey is on the western side of GMT+1, so the sun sets late, although not as late as in The Gambia, but there is still enough natural light for vehicles not to have to put on their lights by 6.30 in the evening.
In fact, Niamey is only some 600 miles from Bawku, as the crow flies, which is about equal distance between Bawku and Accra, so we are not too far away from GMT+1.
I know it will be difficult to persuade many people, but please hear me out. First of all, people might wonder whether a nation can change its time.
Yes, many countries change their time back and forth to suit their circumstances every year.
Almost all countries that experience winter and summer shift their time by one hour either way in order to gain extra daylight when they need it, so the idea is not that strange.
It is obvious that Togo, which is even worse off than us, would not need much persuasion to join so that we don’t end up with a hotchpotch of time zones in West Africa. Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia up to Senegal and the Gambia are not as affected by the lack of evening sunlight as we do.
Savings
This change will save us a lot of money because we don’t have to spend as much money on power and lights both for industrial and domestic use. It will cost us far less in relative terms than changing from driving on the left to the right.
That decision was taken and implemented in the teeth of opposition from people who thought driving on the left was a natural phenomenon.
There is nothing sacred or even “natural” about time.
The advantages of shifting our time forward by one hour are easy to see. In practice, it would mean that when it is five o’clock, when most office workers have closed, it would really be and feel like 4 o’clock in the afternoon now, and that means sunset will be at least two hours away. This means most workers can get home before it gets dark.
At the moment, working parents of little children invariably pick their children after work and get home in the dark.
This will change if they had about two hours of daylight after work. Common sense tells us that a country that has little streetlights and outside lighting of any sort should make use of its natural light to the maximum.
The change would mean that people can travel more safely in the early evening daylight than in the dark dusks we have now. It is a worry to see so many people standing at trotro stops at 6.15 in the evening.
The worry on their faces stems from the fact that the darkness is already gathering in at that hour. It would be bright at that hour if we had an additional hour of sunlight.
Improvement in safety
More critically, this will improve the safety of evening cyclist by a huge margin. In Ghana, cyclists wear neither helmets nor flourescent material which makes it difficult to see them at dusk, especially if they are wearing dark clothes.
Of course, an additional hour of daylight means children can play a lot longer outside. Naturally, this could also mean more time for adults to engage in games and exercises such as walking.
The shift in time will also mean additional shopping time for those who have to shop after work or in the evenings. Generally speaking, this would mean an additional hour of open markets which could translate into a lot of trade in the evening.
Our markets close early not because the sellers and buyers are tired but because the light is dying quickly after 5.30 in the evening. This will definitely improve retail trade figures and, therefore, the economy as a whole.
Of course, the shift would mean additional darkness in the early morning but even if you want to beat the accursed Spintex Road traffic, it is safer to set off from home in the last bit of darkness than return home in the dark.
Actually, in Banjul, daylight breaks by seven in the morning and at 6.30 in Niamey, so it is not bad. But the late sunrise could be good news.
Farmers in the rural areas often set off at the crack of dawn, which is usually before five in the morning. They could now sleep a bit longer because they would have extra daylight in the evening. The sun rises at about five in the morning and for most of us, the early sunrise is thoroughly wasted.
And finally… it has been proved, I think, by fertility doctors that couples who want to make babies are better off making them in the morning. This means childless couples, who are bothering pastors and assorted spiritualists with their problems, could do well to make use of the extra darkness.
Think about it, a whole one extra hour should be sufficient! For the rest of us, we can sleep more blamelessly and without guilt at dawn.
Happy New Year… Join a campaign; speak up and expand the frontiers of our democracy.
