Defacing our edifices

Defacing our edifices: 

It was about 22:45 GMT on the eve of Christmas. I was tired with a lot of sleep arears hanging on my eyes. And with the aid of dim light, I thought I saw a vision of beautiful paintings, water-colours, canvases and posters on the walls of the house I resided some time ago.

Momentarily, my thoughts admired the sea of colours playing on my blurred sleepy vision as I lazily struggled to yank the main gate and locate my room to catch a good sleep.   

Ooo! It was rather a simulated beauty of what I thought I saw the night before, when the sun aided my eyes to see loads of the posters on the walls of the Akrante Villa.

It was a messy dirty look of a dense covering of posters posted on debris of a wailing white wall, Mr. Akoto (not his real name), the landlord, had planned painting.

He got furious and mad at whoever might have posted them, as he gave a thundering command for his son to immediately clear the mess on the wall.

Then the question hit me, where is our sense of beauty? Must we in the name promoting our conventions, all nights, music launch, movies, political candidates or other programmes bombard people’s walls with these posting and pasting of posters?  

It is true the Akrante Villa was by all standards strategically located at a vantage intersections in one of the suburbs in Accra that might have made the walls an attractive destination for such free adverts.

Although he threatened reporting the unnecessary nuisance to the authorities, I guess Mr. Akoto could not pursue it. But I realised he might not be the only one suffering this abuse on his property. 

Posters everywhere

It is far-fetched to say almost all public facilities like roads, overpasses and even street lights as well as bus stop stands are not spared this mess. It is not only limited to Accra but replete in all the regional capitals and some towns and cities in the country. 

The perpetrators have succeeded in converting walls (with or without post-no-bill inscription) of houses adjacent major roads, overpasses and street light polls as well as avenue trees into cheap public notice boards or spaces to advertise their programmes and other announcers. These posters which were perhaps done hurriedly in the night do not only deface our edifices but an eyesore and an ugly indication we have thrown our sense of beauty and cleanliness to the dogs.

A cursory look at the Mallam Junction section of the N1 High reveals faded debris of posters of politicians used in the 2012 general elections. The bleached and distressed posters still seen on the walls of the road gives them a horrible look.

The posters and flyers that come in various shades, sizes and colours no doubt attract road users’ attention, which somehow achieve their aim. But is that the right thing to do? If yes is it sustainable? Who pays for the cost of cleaning up the mess?

The indiscriminate posting of posters has also marred and tainted the beauty of our edifices and some monuments dotted round the country and also contributed to polluting our environment.

Culprits

It is not difficult to spot the offenders who awash our streets and other buildings with a sea of filthy assortment of belated and post-dated posters. A closer look at the posters exposes their owners and their designers. Some are so-called men of God, politicians, musicians, movie producers, while others are obituaries announcing the death of a member of that area.

Similarly, other posters and flyers promoting vacation classes or announcing employment avenues, loans for salaried government workers, as well as publicising auditioning dates for actors and actresses or new talent hunts; and others also posted by organisers of vacation classes or remedial courses, while others also announces availability of new programmes in tertiary education. The list is endless.   

In recent time, movie producers in their bid to outdoor their new movies and improve sales have also resorted to posting and pasting their movie posters everywhere to promote their movies.    

With a desperate show to breathe the free air of advertisement space, it is often said these posters get torn or removed if one fails to apply appropriate glue or starch to their posters or do the necessary monitoring. Some even keep monitoring those spaces they posted their posters even late at night or from time to time to ensure their presence were intact.

The jostling for the limited spaces becomes even intense and heightened during election year as well as during the major festive occasions such as Christmas or Easter when churches or event organisers post their package loads of activities for their members and to possibly entice the floating believers or revellers.     

Essentially, the inadequate notice boards in Accra, has in a way become a license or a certification for culprit to post posters everywhere. Somehow, this phenomenon has boisterously empowered politicians and their teeming supporters to post and glue their candidates’ faces everywhere during electioneering campaigns, which could still be cited in several areas just like their billboards two years after the elections. This has no doubt contributed to this large scale self-defacing practice of our edifices, described by many as a helpless situation. It is as if we are still fumbling in the woods of lawlessness to notice the self-destructive things we are perpetuating against ourselves.

The ‘I don’t care attitude’

I do not believe these huge edifices were established for us to abuse and deface. I do not believe we have subtly sanctioned the practice as the right thing to do. Neither do I share the belief that littering our streets with posters and flyers is an effective means of campaigning or advertising. It is not only an eye-sore but a disturbing trend we must curb or live to suffer the pollution and nuisance these posters cause.

Certainly, our street lights, road sign posts, footbridges and avenue trees must be spared this ordeal because they were not built or planted to hang these posters.

The ‘I don’t care attitude’ or the benign negligence of the Metropolitan, Municipal, District Assemblies (MMDAs), who look on and some men of God and musicians, movie producers and promoters, politicians or business owners who encourage their congregation, fans and employees to litter these posters on the streets is not just worrying but a lame posture of inaction to rid our cities of filth and keep a clean environment.    

Conclusion

That these edifices cost us so much to construct, means we ought to do our best to keep them in good shape or maintain them. And the least we can do is to desist from defacing and destroying them.

The MMDAs must erect more notice boards at strategic points in the cities and towns to promote their use and generate some funds for their Assemblies.

Furthermore, the MMDAs in collaboration with area or town councils and communities must clean these messy post-dated oodles of posters on our walls and on our streets. The assemblies could slap fines on culprits and ask them to remove the debris of posters at unauthorized place or even prosecute them.

It is incumbent on the Assemblies and the political parties or candidates who contested in the 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections to remove the huge and mini bill-boards which are still on display, to make space for other adverts. This is because they are not just a nuisance to residents and the travelling public but obsolete obstruction to vision that block and dwarf vital road sign posts and other directional sign posts. Those vying for positions in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) should also be asked to remove their posters after the elections.        

The MMDAs must in collaboration with the Information Services Department intensify public education on the need to keep towns and cities clean especially at a time we are battling with the outbreak of Cholera.

Of what use is it to build monuments or infrastructure with massive financial investment and just deface them? We cannot continue behaving as if we were a lawless people without a sense of beauty or discipline.

We are better off in our progress match, if we all acted with a high sense of cleanliness and discipline, because we all have a collective responsibilities to ensure the cleanliness of our country.   

May God help us all.