DiOGO SLAUGHTER🇬🇭

Akosombo: The Community the Dam(n!) Floods Built. 1. For the 87 consecutive years of our being a formal colony, we had no significant source of electric power. 2. Only four years into self-rule, a few wise men thought that a hydroelectric dam could hasten Ghana’s economic development by powering its future industries. And what’s more? Domestic life could become even more enjoyable. 3. But to make it happen, the lives and livelihoods of over 740 communities along the Volta River Basin had to be put on the line. These communities ranged from fisherfolk and petty farmers to cash-crop farmers across multiple ethnic groups: Akwamu, Gonja, Konkomba, Krachi, Kwawu, and Tongu Ewe. 4. During the construction of the Akosombo Dam (1961–1965), these communities were displaced by the flooding of the Volta River Basin that followed the project. 5. While most residents were reluctant to abandon their homes and sources of income for unfamiliar areas, the state, through the Volta River Authority, made an initial allocation of £3.8 million to build resettlement communities for those displaced. By 1968, a total of £13 million had been spent. 6. With that arrangement in place, both the dam construction and the resettlement exercise proceeded largely in parallel. 7. To ensure the completion of the dam, which remains, arguably, the single most important infrastructure project since Ghana’s independence, the Presidential House at Akosombo was built so that Nkrumah could personally oversee the project to its early completion. 8. Eternal repose to Osagyefo’s soul. Given that his opponents ridiculed the project, what might have happened if Akosombo had remained incomplete before his overthrow in 1966? 9. And as a scenic accident, the flooding of the Volta River Basin created Lake Volta, the world's largest man-made lake by surface area. 10. As several flood-prone towns in Accra continue to be submerged by perennial rains, could state-led resettlement appreciably resolve the crisis? pic.1(L): flooded community during dam construction pic.2(top-R): a planned resettlement community pic.3(bottom-R): presidential house overseeing dam construction 🎥: UCLA Library

tuumatu: jump and let me jump. how the childhood game has evolved into a political play. 📹: willis e. bell, 1960.