THE AFTERMATH AND COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE STATE
During the early 20th century, Keta was the 3rd largest and most important town in Gold Coast after Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi, Keta was the administrative head of the Eastern Province of the Gold Coast colony now called the Republic of Ghana, a centre of excellence, an international commercial hub, a port city, an educational centre of repute, and a major centre for the missionary churches. It is of record that the first diocese of the Catholic Church in the Gold Coast was in Keta. Indeed, Keta was a town in its own class, a great pride for the people of the Anlo land.
Geographically, Keta is a town nestled between the sea (the Atlantic Ocean) and the lagoon (the Keta Lagoon Complex). It was/is a narrow sandbar between the lagoon and the sea. But the beautiful town has a geographic as well as geomorphological disadvantage: it has a sandy coast and lies below sea level along most portions of its coast, between 1-3 meters below sea level. However, Keta’s puniest point that couldn’t help her much as the decades went by is the sea.
In the wake of early 1999-2004 the, state initiated a project called the Keta Sea Defense Project (KSDP) a project that others refer to as the Great Lake Project. The project started on the costal belts of Keta and its environs by the state. The state which is made up of two categories of people namely; the duty bearers and the right holders got involved. The duty bearers whose responsibility carries the weight of the everyday activities, who are also held accountable by the right holder’s drug the sea defense project into play, all in the name of saving a community called Keta.
In the wake of that activity the government spent some much money to construct a bridge in between the lagoon and the sea and other activities not excluding the reclaiming of some portions of lands for the people of Keta in the Volta Region. However, the project that has lived for over two decades plus will soon be washed off if the duty bearers and the right holders refuse to come to a compromising ground to save the community once again.
During the mid-section of 2023 the tropical rains that appears to have practically destroyed lives and properties everywhere in the country also affected the people of Keta and its environs as well. Nonetheless the volume of water that affected place like Mepe, Sogakope, Aveyime and the rest finds it way into the Keta lagoon giving a rise to the lagoon, hence causing another damage in community like Seva, Kodzi. Anyanui etc., this concern however troubled the duty bearers hence compelling them to do the needful by finding a way for the lagoon to flow into the sea. But authorities however forgot to block back the passage to prevent the flow of the sea back into the lagoon.
As rightly said by the President, we should be citizens, not spectators, I hereby call on authorities herein known as the duty bearers to do the needful in other to avoid another disaster after the Mepe and its environs displacement. A stitch in time saves nine, so they say. The once upon a time business city is gradually turning into a ghost town where the social economic, and physical structures of the people of Anlo Land are disappearing slowly as the sea washes them away.
RIGHTEOUS SEMAHAR
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
CENTER FOR PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS AND HUMAN SECURITY, GHANA (CPCHS)
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