JXTC GENRE : DECEMBER 08 TEMPLATE

Ghana’s President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, eleven months into his administration has still not moved into the purpose-built executive office and residential accommodation facility called Jubilee House. It is a very nice and imposing structure befitting our nation.

I believe that such a structure should have been added to our national real estate long ago.
The Osu Castle, which has long been the seat of Ghana’s governments – colonial and post colonial – is something of an architectural behemoth. The original castle itself has (had) its own charm but has been vandalized with the addition of a “new” wing which houses executive staffers.

I don’t know whose idea that was but it represents to me one of those acts of egregious philistinism that our politicians and public/civil servants have become experts in! You take a centuries old slave castle and graft onto it a wing that is totally unrelated. I have been to the Osu Castle several times and I think it is one of the drabbest buildings in Ghana, if not the whole of the West African sub-region!

If there is one thing I regard as an inspired decision and action by former President Kufuor, it has to do with his courage and foresight to put up a brand new seat of government for the country: The Jubilee House is a symbol of the resurgent Ghana which it flaunts proudly on the grounds of the former Flagstaff House. Why the ex-President did not move in and hand over from there to his successor reminds me yet again of some of those inexplicable clumsy actions of the ex-President in particular and the NPP in general.

Today, this magnificent edifice is being treated as though it was a pigsty, due to nothing but churlishness and some mistaken notions of populism. Sooner than later, President Mills would have to  move in there because if there ever was any sign of a Better Ghana, the Jubilee House is it! It is certainly BETTER than the Osu Castle.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah put up Job 600 for the first OAU Conference; Mr. J.J. Rawlings put up the Accra International Conference Centre for some non-aligned conference – two structures that received their fair share of damnation initially, but today, who can doubt the usefulness of these public buildings.

They were put up at a time we not self sufficient in and could have done with more hospitals, schools, lorry parks, public toilets, etc, the same conditions prevailing when Jubilee House was being constructed. Development is multi track: There never comes a time when needs are satisfied and then stopped for the next set of needs to be tackled.

You build some schools, you build some health facilities, you put up some public buildings, you construct some roads, all concurrently, looking for resources from different sources to satisfy all those needs crying for attention. For me therefore, the argument that the money that was used to construct Jubilee House could have been used elsewhere does not wash…If you doubt me, then really, you have to go back to those little history books we all read as primary/middle/secondary school kids…
“Travel and See” is a very well-used Ghanaian axiom.

It captures many things, but for me, what it signifies is its inherent didactic quality – a kind of out-of-the-class education. Not exactly wisdom, but shall we say, “eye-opening”. And true, when you travel, you see many things that should inform, educate, entertain and indeed, hopefully, enlighten you. When I travel – locally or abroad – buildings attract me and no doubt other people too.

Buildings after all, are the most visible signs of developing, developed or underdeveloped. Buildings combine the creative and engineering arts and sciences and I think architects are among the most fascinating and intriguing professionals: Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Courbosier, Frank Lloyd Wright, E.M. Pei, Norman Foster, etc (please correct some of the slip ups in the spellings and don’t worry that I have not yet added any Ghanaian names).

When I went to Copenhagen recently for the Editor’s Forum on Climate Change, there were buildings, buildings, buildings everywhere! Our first session was held at the National Opera House. The city being among a complex of islands, we got there by boat. Approaching it the way we did was so remarkable.

The exterior was imposing so was the interior, which was another matter altogether. I was with my African colleagues and we all kept marveling at the edifice and asking when we would also have such structures, not one, but many, back home.

I chuckled to myself, knowing very well that back home, putting up such a structure could in fact be regarded as a criminal activity – our Jubilee House stands accused – a stark symbol of knowing the cost of everything but the value of none!

In these concluding words, if I may ask: Who puts up buildings? Answer: Human Beings and they could be Individuals, Corporations, Local Governments, Central Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations. It is a long and endless list. May we see many more buildings like Job 600, Accra International Conference Centre and Jubilee House in Ghana and may our President, John Evans Atta Mills, find his way clear very soon to move to the Jubilee House to prosecute his “Better Ghana” agenda…That would not detract or distract, in fact, it may just accelerate things.

By Alhaji A. Harruna Attah