Ghana's floods aren't just a weather problem. They're a governance problem. And according to Dr Esther Ofei-Aboagye, the solution starts with letting you — the citizen — vote for your local chief executive.
Dr Ofei-Aboagye is an Engagement Committee Member of the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC). She spoke on the sidelines of the ACRC Cross-Project Learning Workshop in Accra. Her message was blunt: appointed Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) are too scared to act because they owe their jobs to political patrons in Accra.
“When you are beholden to somebody, when your hand is in somebody’s mouth, it limits how you can speak,” she said.
She believes electing MMDCEs would give them the confidence to make unpopular but necessary decisions — like stopping people from building on waterways or clearing blocked drains — without fear of being sacked.
But she warned that elections alone aren't a magic fix. “I don’t believe it’s a total panacea,” she said. “We vote for MPs and all that. But in addition to that, if we are able to capacitate our people to elect the people who can give them the best, the people with the best visions, the people with the best capacities, the people who can speak up and give them the support, then we can make progress.”
Dr Ofei-Aboagye painted a picture of what real local leadership should look like: a chief executive who can stand up and say, “What is going on? Am I in agreement? Please, thank you. You can have your job. This is the reason why. I stand for truth. I stand for doing the right thing.”
She said the country's flooding disaster is the result of years of weak citizen responsibility, poor planning, and limited accountability. “Certainly I’m not happy at all,” she said. She noted that despite many urban development initiatives, the problems persist. “The problem has been several years in the making because there have been a number of urban development initiatives, and we ask ourselves why these things have not worked.”
She pointed to a missing sense of shared ownership. “This issue of people’s attitudes and mindsets has become very important. That sense of shared ownership and co-responsibility for where our nation is going has been missing sadly.”
Dr Ofei-Aboagye also called out the common practice of filling waterways with waste to create land for construction. “People fill up water spaces with plastic bags so that they can build on them. It’s wrong, but for years we’ve all looked, shaken our heads and moved on.”
She said Ghanaians must stop expecting the government alone to solve environmental problems. “We don’t want to take responsibility for managing our garbage. We don’t want to take responsibility for where we dispose of it or even contribute to clearing gutters and sewage.”
She urged citizens to challenge bad practices and see themselves as responsible for their communities. “It is very important that we invest in seeing ourselves as each other’s keepers and also encourage ourselves as citizens to be able to say no to things that are happening badly.”
She praised young people for taking positive initiatives and called for collaboration over competition. “Young people are doing some very interesting things which should help. How can we encourage that, uplift that, and project that rather than fighting over who is doing what and who is claiming recognition? Let’s work together to deal with this.”
Dr Ofei-Aboagye said Ghana is at a critical moment and must seize the opportunity for change. She encouraged professionals, community members, and the media to keep speaking out against illegal developments. “The media is doing a fabulous job in this respect, but other people also have to come on board.”
She concluded that the country's current challenges are the result of collective inaction. “In a sense, we are jointly responsible for having brought ourselves to this point.”