Making bicycles a safe choice of transportation in Ghana

 

Schoolgirls on bicycles in Ghana, photo credit: UNICEF

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘vehicle’ as a conveyance for transporting passengers or goods on land or in space. In this case, besides a car, a lorry, trains, and an airplane, a bicycle is also accepted as a means of transport to use on the road.

That means a cyclist has the right to use the road without any horn hooting or harassment of the rider by other road users. Integrated transport policy is not viable without the implementation of structures allowing the development of cycling.

There are many reasons the bicycle is essential to users. The bicycle enables one to get somewhere very fast when there is a traffic hold-up. It is energizing to use a bicycle, and it eliminates stress. 

Among all transport, it is the cheapest, as you don’t need fuel and no license is required. Ecologically, the manufacturing and use of a bicycle, as well as the planning of space for its use, create much less solid waste and no pollution.

In Ghana, bicycles play a major role as a means of transport in the North for farmers who have no other means of getting to their farms and homes. However, at the moment, bicycles are fast emerging as an urban means of transport in Europe.

Transportation is a problem in most big cities. It is therefore not a crime for a cyclist to get to work or wherever he intends to go on a bicycle. However, on the road, some road users think the cyclist has no right at all to be on the street. They torment cyclists with the blaring of horns and even scream at them at times.

It is very frustrating to most drivers when a cyclist is ahead of them or at any inconvenient place along the road, since bicycles can cause traffic on a busy road. 

Some cyclists have contributed to road accidents many times, but that doesn’t mean that they have no right to use the road; after all, are motorists also involved in road accidents? 

Walking through the city of Accra, there is nowhere one can find a bicycle route on the side of the major roads. For example, the Accra–Kasoa road is a very well-constructed road, but it was constructed without any bicycle lane.

In Europe, a circulation plan aiming to develop cycling was approved in the ’80s. Revised annually, it considers the implementation of a network of cycle lanes and the transformation of parking places into bicycle parking. 

This network is built in order to reinforce the safety of cyclists, with stop signposts placed before those for cars and crossroads redesigned for cyclists. 

In Ghana, roads are constructed without any consideration for bicycle users. Nothing is planned in the country by taking the future into consideration.

I believe that if the government implements the construction of bicycle routes in its future projects, there will be a free flow of traffic in the cities, and that would also help to reduce the traffic holdups that motorists are currently facing.

It’s a well-known fact that a lack of finance is one of the major setbacks affecting Africa’s infrastructure and projects. But if a specific project would be a solution or an answer to a problem, then the government should take it into consideration. 

For example, in Europe, to prevent traffic jams and ensure the safety of cyclists, the Netherlands has been successful with bicycle routes running throughout the towns and cities. A journey of about 50 to 100 km could easily be done by bicycle. 

In Trondheim, Norway, a bicycle lift has been put up in the center of the town to facilitate access to another town called Brubakken, and in Belgium, a bicycle tunnel has been built under the sea to link the two cities of Antwerp and Linkeroever. 

It takes ten to twelve minutes to go to Linkeroever from the city of Antwerp, while the bus takes about twenty minutes.

As Ghana gradually matures into a great nation, the government must include the construction of bicycle routes in its future road projects. Bicycles play a very significant role, not only as a means of transport but also as a promoter of good health.

 

Slavery Lasted 400 years, So Why The Protests Against COVID 19 Lockdown For Some Few Days?

 

Protesters against coronavirus lockdown in the Netherlands

The coronavirus lockdown is provoking many people that want their freedom around the world, despite the high rate of COVID 19 infections in recent times.  Hence, many people worldwide, including the Netherlands, not satisfied with the lockdown rules to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus, took to the streets protesting.

There is no one who doesn’t like the taste of sweet freedom because as humans, people are not interested in laws and rules that will confine them to one place. Frankly speaking, freedom is more effective than any medicine as it prevents loneliness, depression, any psychological problems, including the tendencies of committing suicide.

 

Even animals and birds like freedom, since many are fed up being kept in the zoo. Even in a cage, a bird may seem happy whistling and hopping around, yet open the cage for that bird and you will see the full force of flight that bird will be applied to escape into the air without looking back.

 

There was much unrest through Europe, including London, over the lockdown. In Eindhoven, one of the cities in Holland, protesters set fires and threw missiles at the police against the lockdown measures, while the police fought to control the situation with tear gas and water cannons, leading to the arrest of at least 55 people.

 

Many times, I keep wondering if people that have never suffered slavery, racism, colonial brutalities, the Apartheid form of government, and the handicapped by deliberate infection of diseases, understand the situation of people that have experienced such tragedies and bitter experiences of black history.

 

Africans were captured and sold as slaves in the most degrading and horrifying manner that lasted 400 years before abolition, yet today we are witnessing carnage, destruction, crimes against the authorities because they want people to obey the laws implemented to avoid the spread of the coronavirus.

 

How sincere and thoughtful are we as human beings? You, in life many don’t care about other people's sufferings because they are not the victims. Selfishness, greed, lies, and hypocrisy are some of the ailments that shut down the brain of human beings to be considerate to think about the well-being of other people.

 

If black people have survived slavery, Apartheid horrors, and colonial atrocities that lasted for decades, why some people always want to break the rule and find it difficult to survive a lockdown for some few days to prevent the spread of a disease that will benefit us?

The truth is in life if you haven't been through certain difficulties, you wouldn't have the experience to accept certain rules for your own benefit. People often don't care about the tragedies that fall on other people but the reality is whatever goes around, always comes around.

The situation about the coronavirus is hard to understand. We don't see people getting ill or falling on the streets, yet we hear of people dying each day by COVID 19. Whether what those health experts are telling us is true or false, we must obey the rules and see what happens

THE VATICAN CITY Has Disappointed Its Followers And God, Above All

The Vatican City


In recent years, sexual abuse scandals involving the Catholic Church have been an ugly situation that no apology or remedy could heal the victims who are scarred for life.

Last year, the Catholic Church was under severe pressure over the complaints of victims that allegedly have been sexually abused by the church for several years while services to the church. 

The Vatican City has nothing to cover up the accusations but to apologize. The apology has been made, but new accusations keep appearing every day from many parts of the world.

In Kenya, the authorities are now looking for much evidence to prosecute a retired Dutch Roman Catholic bishop, Cornelius Schilder, for the sexual abuse of an underage boy, eighteen years ago.

The Deetman Commission investigating abuses within the Catholic Church alerted the Dutch authorities to the case. Unfortunately, since the victim did not report the case to the police, the commission is now facing problems in its investigations to prosecute Bishop Schilder.

Bishop Schilder, who is now in the Netherlands, has refused to talk to the press about the case. His lawyer has denied any abuse by the Bishop.

In 2005, the 32 alleged victim, Michael Ole Uka, was treated for the injuries relating to the abuse. He claimed to have been abused by several priests serving the Mill-Hill Missionary, for a very long period, including Bishop Schilder in 1993. 

The missionary paid for his medical treatment but failed to report the case to the Kenyan police, because that type of case, classified as homosexuality, is a crime.

It was, however, reported to the Vatican in Rome, but it took them three years and repeated requests to finally force the Bishop to retire.

As a matter of fact, the Vatican City and all those accused of such crime have totally disappointed God (the Holy Mary) whom they serve, and the followers of the Catholic Church. 

Instead of an apology, they must make sure such a crime shouldn't be repeated. An invisible cloud of shame hangs over the Vatican City now.

Bijlmer is beautiful but is it a dangerous place to live in Amsterdam?

The Bijlmer in the South-East of Amsterdam


In the southeast of Amsterdam lies a nice, lively neighborhood called Bijlmer. Bijlmer is always in the news, firstly due to the big firms and industries that have created thousands of jobs for the Dutch people and secondly due to the wave of crime that has soured the image of its inhabitants, mainly foreigners. 


Bijlmer has also situated the magnificent modern Ajax stadium, which has hosted thousands of international matches, conferences, and concerts.

The influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal, has made Bijlmer a dangerous place to live in Amsterdam. With diverse immigrants, mainly from Surinam, Antillean, and Curacao, former colonies of the Dutch and West African immigrants, Bijlmer is now a commercial center for drug trafficking and harbors the most hardened criminals.

How do we call this? Holland dream or Dutch dream? Like the American dream, inviting many Latin Americans and Mexicans into the country, Suriname came in their numbers to the Netherlands. 

Without any basic education, the majority of Suriname is stagnant, without any future. Feeling dejected and frustrated, the only means to survive the material world of Bijlmer is to resort to drug trafficking, crime, and violence.

With the desire to study the background of Africans living in the Bijlmer, I have never seen merciless, hostile, and aggressive people like Suriname before. 

They even think the police fear them and they would not like to come their way. But what makes these people so aggressive and violent? 

My opinion is that the free smoking of marijuana is. In public, the metros running Gaasperplas and Gein, from the Central Station and the lifts of apartments, are always choked with heavy smoke and the odor of marijuana.

Some of the drugs they smoke and use have taken their toll on them. Junkies are a common sight in the Bijlmer. The effects of drugs on users are disastrous. Horrible creatures like people acting in horror movies. 

An investigation conducted recently by two Dutch journalists, Jan-Willem Navis and Joris Polman, in the neighborhood of Bijlmer revealed that for between two and three hundred euros, someone could own a gun, and they fear that, within a short period, guns would overflow in the neighborhood of Bijlmer. Young boys move around everywhere with knives hidden on them.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Is the crime wave in Bijlmer too much for the police to handle, or bring the situation under control? Over the years, the police force has demonstrated how good they could be by catching many criminals, and those who wanted to resist arrest jumped to their deaths. 

They have tried everything to make Bijlmer a safe place to live, but from every angle, it seems the police are losing the battle.