Before Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was removed from power in a bloodless 1966 coup, his government had planned to construct a dam in Vea, a village in an ulterior corner of the north.
The farming community, found in the valley zone of Bongo, a district in the Upper East region, had been identified as the best location within the zone to situate the dam to boost food production and water supply to several parts of the region.
Days after the late-February coup, the military government that overthrew Nkrumah announced a sod-cutting ceremony would take place in the village in March to start the construction of the dam.
Passing quickly from one mouth to another, the announcement went viral in the area at the time despite the absence of electricity, telephones and such present-day social networking services as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and X.
Joy spread everywhere as information travelled through the border district and the communities in the nearby Burkina Faso that the dam, which would draw its water from River Ayarigatanga, would improve their farming activities over the whole year and bring potable water to their homes.
The chief of the village, Naba Azubire Abagna I, demonstrated the joy more than anyone else. He lost no time in providing all the items needed for the pouring of a libation— a sheep, flour, a fowl and a brownish traditional alcoholic beverage called pito— on the day of the sod-cutting ceremony.
There were no canopies for the event. But the happy crowd, several hundreds large, sat under trees at the open-air ceremony with some of the country’s top military leaders including Lt. Gen. Joseph Ankrah and Lt. Gen. Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa.
Among the people in the gathering was an 18-year-old shepherd boy, whose father was the chief of the village. Standing in the front row, the boy saw everything.
The teenage shepherd would become a chief 27 years later, choosing the title Naba Thomas Azubire II on a royal skin he still occupies to date.
He also would be the spearhead of a decades-long protest in the village relating to a problem posed by the dam to his people. And he would lead a radical homemade solution to that problem 58 years later, inspired by a homecoming rally.
Early misfortune
The construction of the dam was completed in August, 1968. The completion happened at the time the rainy season was at its peak.
The first water that found its way into the basin of the new dam came from the River Ayarigatanga that connected two nearby villages— Gowrie and Balungu— to Vea.
The water volume swelled— and continued to rise—as the rains fell heavily and regularly.
Later, the water spilled over, submerging several croplands, destroying countless economic trees and carrying many animals away. No human life was lost. But the amount of devastation the overflow wreaked on property, for which compensation reportedly was not paid, was huge.
That kind of disaster was not experienced again the following year. And it has not happened again from that time to this day.
But another form of disaster, which would happen annually and last six months every year, soon emerged.
The dam’s spillway stretches along the boundary between Vea and Gowrie. It is usually filled with a volume of water that runs very deep and very fast from July to January.
Because the spillway has no walkway, Vea usually is cut off from the other communities behind the dam during the rainy season. It happens every year and it takes a slow six months for the water to dry from the spillway.
This persistent problem has been around for 56 years since the completion of the dam project in 1968.
Until canoes were introduced in the area to lessen their pains, the people of the community had risked swimming or wading through the water-filled spillway, sometimes with children or sick people carried on shoulders, for about 40 years.
Today, the members of the community, many of whom own motorbikes, cross the spillway on canoes at a fee and at the risk of swamping or capsizing.
Currently, it costs a passenger Gh¢5 to cross on a canoe. A passenger who wants to cross with their motorbike on a canoe pays an additional Gh¢10 for that motorbike alone. They pay the same amount on their return journey.
Impact on healthcare delivery
The members of the community appreciate the dam because it has been a lifeline for their farming activities, particularly in the dry season.
Besides, the dam also has been a source of treated water for homes, workplaces as well as many businesses in the district and the region’s capital, Bolgatanga.
“If you go somewhere down there, you will see some youth putting up beautiful houses because of the dry-season farming. Even people from outside the community come to Vea to acquire wealth from this project,” Naba Thomas Azubire II told Media Without Borders recently in the community.
But the suffering the people have endured alone for more than half a century with no show of concern by successive governments about their dilemma is undercutting their appreciation.
Many of them now consider the dam more a problem than a solution. They say although it promotes their right to food, it also takes away their freedom of movement and right to safety.
“The dam has a negative part and a positive part,” the chief added. “The negative part is the lack of a footbridge to deal with the problems we face from the spillway.”
It is easier— and shorter— to travel from the community in the direction of the spillway to the major amenities found in the district and in the region’s capital, compared to using any other direction.
But because the residents have to cross the spillway water on canoes, critically ill people who are referred from the community to health facilities in the district and the region’s capital incur more costs and face more risks.
Patients who are directed to the health centre in Vea from the communities located behind the dam go through the same ordeal. Healthcare workers stationed in that area or assigned there suffer alike.
“Gowrie has been cut off because of this water,” the assembly member for Vea, Wilbert Abuula Apu-usum, told the author of this story. “If there is a referral case from Gowrie, they cannot access the health centre in Vea.”
“The vaccines used in Gowrie are stored in the health centre in Vea here. The nurses at Gowrie commute regularly on canoes to pick their vaccines from Vea to treat patients in Gowrie,” he added.
Effect on education
Some years back, the perennial inconvenience caused by the spillway water resulted in teachers’ absenteeism, lateness to work and their refusal to work in the community.
This became a source of worry to the people of the area. To deal with this, they provided a canoe to always transport both teachers and healthcare workers stationed in the community across the water anytime and free of charge.
But the community is back to square one because the free canoe is damaged. It is roped afloat to a rod in a shallow corner of the floodwaters, pending repair.
There are fresh reports that some teachers do go to work late, absent themselves from school and some do not want to work in the community because of the inconvenience and risks posed by the bridgeless spillway.
“It also affects the schoolchildren academically because they wouldn’t learn much because their teachers are absent.
“They also tend to stay away from school when their teachers absent themselves from school under the circumstances,” said the assembly member.
“And once the schoolchildren cultivate that habit during the rainy season, they will continue to stay away from school even in the dry season.”
Impact on trade
Traders pay the commercial canoe operators to be transported across the water with their goods into the community.
Ordinarily, there would be no need for them to pay that extra fare if there was a walkway— or a bridge— over the spillway.
Consequently, the affected traders also factor the extra fares incurred into the prices of the goods, putting the burden on the final consumer, so they can earn some profits and pay their bills.
“There is a high cost of items in the Vea market. When you compare the prices of items in Vea and Gowrie, you will see that there is a difference because of this water,” another resident, Peter Avebire, told Media Without Borders.
Some residents recounted during an interview a number of instances where canoes carrying traders capsized in the water. They said goods like salt, sugar, milled pepper, powdered spices and garri being transported in bags with the traders sank in the water when the canoes overturned and got completely dissolved in it.
“The fear that the canoes may capsize and all the goods would be lost in the water is killing trade in Vea,” said a businesswoman, Alice Adugdaa. “Some people don’t want to sell items that cannot be recovered from the water when there is such a disaster.”
“So, you would have only one or two people still selling the items and they increase the prices of the commodities because they have a monopoly on those items.”
Fruitless efforts and a radical solution
The community has written several letters to the government through the Bongo District Assembly from 2012 to date, begging for a bridge or a walkway.
The letters, one of which was copied to the Irrigation Company of Upper Region (ICOUR), yielded no results under the previous government and the current administration.
The distress got worse when ICOUR reportedly told the leaders of the community that the spillway was not designed to have a bridge or a pathway.
In the last week of December, 2019, members of the community held a homecoming summit where they took a unanimous decision, endorsed by the chief of the area, to construct a walkway over the spillway themselves.
In 2020, the community consulted an engineer through a committee to design a walkway and started contributing money to buy the materials needed to execute the project themselves.
That same year, the roads and highways minister, Kwasi Amoako-Atta, toured the region. He promised that the region’s road network would be improved. He never said anything about Vea until the journalists who were part of the tour notified him at that moment that the people of Vea had resolved upon constructing the walkway with their own resources because the government did not care about them.
In response, the minister said no community had the right to embark on such a project without consulting his ministry. Then, he quickly added that a contract had been awarded to a company to construct a bridge over that spillway and the contractor would move to site very soon.
The assurance slowed down the internal donations the community was getting for the project, and the drawback resulted in the plan being shelved.
MP’s intervention in Parliament
The leaders of the community followed up the assurance, involving the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bongo, Edward Bawa, in their latest action.
When the MP raised the matter in Parliament, the roads and highways minister said the construction would begin in November, 2020, and end in November, 2021.
But by October, 2021— a month to the time the project was expected to have been completed— no contractor had shown up in the community to execute it. The disappointed community convened a press conference that month, asking the government to stop paying lip service to their demand for relief.
Because the promised bridge did not materialise, the community went back to the shelf to resume its original plan, and the donations continued. Again, the community wrote to the Bongo District Assembly in October, 2022, notifying the government about its readiness to construct the walkway. The assembly did not object to the move.
The community also wrote to ICOUR in August, 2023, soliciting technical support for the construction of the walkway. Although the company reportedly did not officially acknowledge receipt of that letter, its officials reacted to it.
The officials maintained that a contractor had been engaged to construct a standard bridge with funding from the World Bank and urged the community to not “waste” its own resources on the same project. But the community was not convinced the officials meant what they said as there was no proof that a contractor had been awarded the project.
In September, that same year, the community organised another press conference, demanding an immediate construction of the bridge. The people also warned that, if they did not see any commitment sign by 31st December, 2023, they would move to the site on 1st January, 2024, to construct their own footbridge.
Deadlock
The community did not move to the site on January 1 as planned. It only wrote a letter to the district assembly on Monday, 19 February 2024, seeking approval to construct a temporary walkway pending the construction of the standard bridge the government promised.
A drawing showing the dimensions of the proposed footbridge was attached to that letter.
The assembly granted the request in a letter dated March 11, 2024, and asked the community to further engage some key stakeholders including ICOUR, the District Works Department and the Department of Feeder Roads among others for technical support.
After securing the green light, the community gathered more resources for the project with plans to start the construction on April 17, 2024. On April 16, the leaders of the community engaged the stakeholders in a morning tour of the site chosen for the proposed walkway.
The following day, ICOUR officials, according to the leaders of the community, visited the chosen site. The officials remarked that the site was in front of the spillway and recommended that the footbridge be constructed at a different location some metres away.
That recommendation did not sit well with the community leaders, who said the location the managing director suggested was a muddy ground and it had no access road leading to the community. They further explained that it would cost the community more resources to improve the structure of that ground with sand and gravel.
Raising another point, they said even if the community was able to raise funds to construct an access road from there to the community, using that place to cross into the adjoining communities would be a marathon altogether, particularly for the elderly people. That is because the location was far from the centre of the community.
ICOUR rejects community’s choice with reasons
According to the assemblyman of the area, ICOUR officials met with the leaders of the community on April 19, 2024.
During the meeting, ICOUR stressed that if the footbridge was constructed where the community preferred, the pillars of the bridge would block the water passing through the spillway and result in damage to the dam.
In response, the leaders said the engineers the community engaged had designed the footbridge high enough above the usual levels of the water.
They also said the pillars would not be walls but round in shape and positioned separately with large gaps to allow the water in the spillway to pass freely under the bridge. ICOUR reportedly disagreed and scheduled another meeting with the community for April 22, 2024.
That meeting did not come off because the company’s managing director at the time, Benedict Bonaventure Aligebam, was not available.
A third meeting was held on May 3, with the chief of the community in attendance. But it yielded no result other than controversy. During that meeting, the members of the community accused the ICOUR authorities of frustrating their efforts to construct the footbridge. The comment reportedly angered the company, causing its officials to walk away.
The following month, the company made it known to the leaders of the community at a meeting that a proposal had been forwarded to the World Bank on the project.
The assemblyman said the company announced it intended to carry out some feasibility studies on the proposed location for the footbridge.
According to him, the company came up with three new sites as options for the construction of the footbridge upon the completion of the feasibility studies.
He said another meeting was held on October 1 where the company told the leaders of the community they could situate the footbridge anywhere they preferred among the options, but asked them to modify its structural design to make it stronger.
He said the community leaders responded by telling the company they would go back to the community for broader consultations and revert.
Community replies ICOUR
On October 7, the community leaders wrote a letter to ICOUR, insisting they would construct the footbridge at the original site upstream.
While asking the irrigation authorities to support the project with any modification ideas they had, the community leaders also announced their intention to start the construction on November 7, 2024.
But November 7 passed without the community receiving any response from ICOUR to that letter despite reportedly following up for a reply. The company would tell the author of this report later that it acted on that letter by compiling a report on the matter and submitting it to the Upper East Regional Minister, Hafiz Bin Salih, in December.
The engagement with the regional minister, purportedly slowed down because of the general elections held in December, is yet to yield any result. Many doubt it will yield any result before next year with only two weeks for the current government to hand over power.
ICOUR responds
When Media Without Borders contacted ICOUR’s acting managing director, Charles Aboyella, he maintained that the dam would suffer some adverse effects if the community was allowed to construct the footbridge in front of the spillway.
“Anything in front of the weir (the spillway) would affect the health (safety) of the dam. But they (the community) think that they want it in front of the weir.
“Our engineers are saying if you do it there, you will lose the dam. The engineers would have no problem if they do it anywhere behind the weir,” said Aboyella.
He countered the claims that ICOUR was frustrating the community’s struggles for a footbridge and refuted the allegations that ICOUR endorsed the construction of the footbridge in front of the spillway on the condition that the community modified the design.
“I don’t see what interest ICOUR has in preventing the community from doing a bridge when we are all suffering. When the rains are in and we can’t move from one place to another, ICOUR, too, cannot move around to check their facility.
“So, it’s not in the interest of anybody to stop anybody. It’s about technicalities and the safety of the facility. We are all in pain. Yes, it is good the community has taken their own initiative to help themselves. But the technicality is: where do we do it? ” he said.
He said he would convene a stakeholders’ meeting after the Christmas and New Year break where the next line of action would be spelt out.
“It is the community that is saying that our engineers said they (the community) can modify it (the design of the footbridge), which we haven’t said. Our engineers are saying that place is a no-go area. If the community is saying this and our engineers are saying this, we will bring them together.
“If our engineers are saying it is a no-go area and they (the community) are saying that they would do it there, then we would put up an MOU and sign. Whatever consequences happen, they have taken that decision. That will be the next step,”
We’ve run out of patience— Community
The members of the community say they have exhausted their patience and are determined to start constructing the footbridge this December.
The chief of the community told Media Without Borders in an interview his community could no longer bear the pain.
He said he was prepared to lead his people to construct the footbridge on their own and to face the consequences.
“Whenever the spillway opens, we are cut off for about six months, from June to January. The way the successive governments have treated us is not the best. We’ve held several press conferences. We’ve written letters to the appropriate quarters.
“But all our efforts have been in vain. It looks like ICOUR management has a different mind altogether. They (ICOUR) are sabotaging the whole thing. Now we are up to fight for our rights no matter the consequences. We cannot be suffering all the time,” the chief of the community told the author of this report.
He added: “The youth planned to do something but we the elders stopped them because violence is not the best. We have been suffering for such a long time. We can’t take this any longer.”
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
