HEY! DON'T PEE!

Dragging my tired self from the bus stop after a long day it seems only convenient that I enjoy the cool breeze by moving at an unhurried pace. Time check indicate few minutes to 8pm as I plug in my earpiece to enjoy music from my phone. Turning at a familiar curve to a path that leads to home I notice him, head down, facing a wall and shaking off the remains from his member.

 “Ah! today too!” I uttered in silent disgust. “Do I always have to see someone urinating in an open space particularly at that spot?” Ok I get it; so the fact that the place is dark, has a patch of grass, it’s in a corner and there is a gutter, ....justifies it as a pee spot. Really?"😮 To think that the wall on which this act is carried out is an extension of a police barracks and doubles as the entrance of someone’s house beats my imagination.

It breaks my heart anytime I see notices of “Don’t urinate here” on walls and behind stores. A clear indication that people are tired from the stench and arrogant display of human waste on their property. Talk about the people who park their cars at the side of the street to urinate. Hello… just because you found a corner, gutter or patch of grass somewhere gives you no right to openly display your genitals and urinate. It is an offense to engage in open urination in Ghana.  Act 851 Section 56(A and B) of the Public Health Act 2012. If it is too much of a shame for local assemblies to fine you for exercising your natural right then please do it appropriately.  

With plans to make Accra the neatest city; are we contributing to this causing or derailing government’s good efforts? I’m not ignorant of the fact there are few public washrooms which are bad in terms of hygiene in our communities. But what explanation can you give for the neighbor who is a few blocks away from his house but chooses to “pee’ in front a house because there is a gutter? Several times I have stepped out of the house and met people urinating just because there is a gutter in front the place. Since when did gutters become substitute for washrooms? The cause of this is clearly from how we think instead of what is lacking or inadequate.

We bitterly complain about the stench and filth that engulfs Accra yet do next to nothing individually to avert this plight. Sometimes I feel it is because we don’t consider the welfare of others otherwise why will you stain someone’s walls and area with your urine on the basis that it is not your neighbourhood. True, you don’t live there, but before you proceed bear in mind that its someone’s school, house, workplace or community.

Even more devastating is when adults direct children to gutters and the back of houses when they need to ease themselves instead washrooms. Forgetting that these children will grow up thinking that’s the acceptable norm despite what is taught in the schools. Of what use is our education if we cannot make societies better but follow the trends to urinate in public, after all everyone does it.

 As I always conclude this nation will not get better if we want government to do everything while we neglect our individual responsibilities. The evidence of our actions will still plague our nostrils and affect our health, right from the trotro driver to the man in suit.

Today my case is simple HEY! DON’T PEE! if it is not an established washroom. Enough of making everything a political debate and an issue of Government must step in! We can make our communities better by correcting these ills.