THE DEAD MUST BE RESPECTED
How saddened and disheartening will it be when an imagined or speculated resting place turns up into a defecating zone and a refuse field?
What rest will one get when he/she finds his/herself laying in the midst of filth and inhaling the aroma of different human excreta from different people within an environment?
Rubbish and human excreta is making a loud noise at the Osu cemetery and disturbing the peace of the dead who are supposed to be laying in peace in their minds eye thinking about their fate.
Taking a critical look at how Ghanaians spend huge sums of money eulogizing their loved dead ones, laying them in state conspicuously by decorating them in beautiful horrible beds only to be taken to a filthy final destination with the inscription “rest in peace”.
The loudest question to be asked is, how can one rest in peace in a scruffy environment?
The Osu cemetery is one of the nation’s largest cemetery that most prominent Ghanaians such as madam Theodosia Okoh ,the designer of the national flag,, Efo kodjo Mawugbe the renowned play writer, Daasebre Dwamena, the music legend and the famous demised young journalist, Samuel Nuamah who have retired temporary from this worlds toils have been interned to rest.
The Osu cemetery shares boundaries with the parliament house and also shares a common wall with the military cemetery situated in the heart of Accra.
Looking at the mess caused at the place and taking a critical look at where the cemetery is located, not too far from the Ohene Gyan sports stadium, a few meters away from the independence square, the headquarters of the Christ Apostolic church and even the parliament house, it doesn’t speak well of our dear country.It will surprise you how some young energetic men jump the wall of the cemetery and make their ways into the cemetery and defecate large amount of human dungs on tombs of loved buried Ghanaian after a heavy smoke of Indian hemp (wee).The place is always busy with smokes oozing from the noses of Ghanaian youth.
The cemetery has been turned into a public defecating place that has made the air in the area difficult to inhale.
It will surprise you that, foods such as coconut, rice, plantain chips, bread, and eggs are displayed at the entrance of the cemetery vying the attention of people to buy them with a mass of flies busy buzzing on them especially on Saturdays for people who have come to bury their dead peoples and that I think increases the health hazards in the country.
Food vendors also displays food items at the entrance of the parliament house not too far from the cemetery.
This reminds me of the past when Ghana use to have public health personnel’s we use to call the town council or “Tankas” who use to go round the environment to see the sanitation issues in the country which solved our hygiene problems to some extent.
Juxtaposing the neatly kept and level of discipline at the military cemetery with the main Osu cemetery itself, one will use forever to comprehend whether Ghanaians need a free range to do the right thing or strict laws and supervision before the right thing can be done.
And this act surprisingly doesn’t occur in Osu burial ground only, but take a walk to the ‘’Awudome” cemetery, and other smaller graveyards within Accra and in most Ghanaian communities and you will be humming with me, “The dead must be respected indeed’’.
Get buried in an environment I am describing and you will regret ever dying.
By Sir Reuben
