Meet Ato Quayson; Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. After graduating from The University of Ghana he took his PhD from Cambridge University in 1995. He then went on to the University of Oxford as a Research Fellow, returning to Cambridge in Sept 1995 to become a Fellow at Pembroke College and a member of the faculty of English where he eventually became a Reader in Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies.

Prof Quayson was a Cambridge Commonwealth Scholar from 1991-1994 and is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society. Other accomplishments include, a Fellowship at the Du Bois Institute for African-American Studies at Harvard University (2004), as well as Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and has lectured widely in places such as Istanbul, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Cape Town, Bergen, and on many campuses in the US, the UK, and in Europe more generally.

Prof Quayson is the Chief Examiner in English for the International Baccalaureate and sits on the Commissioning Panel of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the United Kingdom as well as on various other academic bodies and organizations. He was elected to a five-year term on the Modern Language Association’s executive committee of the Division on Postcolonial Studies and Literature in Culture in 2008 and a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in December 2005. He has published widely on African literature, postcolonial studies and in literary theory. His publications include:

“’I no Be Like You: Accra in Life and Literature”, PMLA, 122.1 (January), 2007

(With Tejumola Olaniyan) African Literature: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (Blackwell, 2007)

He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Penguin Classics edition of Nelson Mandela’s No Easy walk to freedom (2002).

He is currently researching on “Oxford Street, Accra: Urban Evolution, and the Itineraries of Globalization in an African City”, an interdisciplinary project taking insights from urban studies, anthropology, history, and political science among others. Which he describes as, “A personal memoir and a biography of the city of Accra from the focal point of “Oxford Street”, perhaps the most globalized street in the country.”

So when GPP News heard that Prof Quayson, perhaps one of the greatest literary minds of our time coming from Africa, was in town giving a lecture on Globalization, urban growth and the social inequalities entering Oxford Street at the British Council, it was an opportunity too mouth-watering for us to let go. We later caught up with him after the lecture and bring you this exclusive interview. Happy reading!

GPP: What is so fascinating about Osu RE/Oxford Street that led you to write about it?
AQ: It was purely by accident. I used to visit Ringway Estates regularly to see a friend who lived there as well as to check my Email. Being a curious person, I started asking questions because Osu RE/Oxford Street had the largest concentration of internet cafes, more than any part of Accra. The more I investigated, the more complicated it became. I realized that there was no way I was going to study Osu RE/Oxford Street without studying Accra in general, hence my current research.

GPP: What is the implication of the development of Osu RE/Oxford Street to the indigenous man?
AQ: The indigenous people, the Gas are in big trouble. Seventy years ago, the Gas accounted for 65% of the population of Accra. By 1957, Accra had a population of 100,000 out of which 65,000 were Gas. Now we are 2.5 million and only 15% are indigenous Gas. So Accra is no longer an exclusively Ga city. The intensity of capital investment is distorting home values so only a few Gas can afford to buy houses on Oxford Street. Majority of the property is going to foreigners both internal and external. It is also distorting the traditional concept of the “Weku Shia” (Family House).

GPP: Would there be another Osu RE/Oxford Street?
AQ: No. The reason is that the historical events that produced this place cannot be replicated. The street was originally planned as a residential corridor and not a commercial avenue. This area became one of the preferred neighborhoods for the ruling elite and counteracts from the colonial period. We are talking as far back as 1920s when the first Ringway Estates was started. These residences were for civil servants; you can see how big the houses there are and so on. But what happened was that with time it started attracting capital because it is a corridor that serviced some of the more high profile neighborhoods in Accra like the Ridge and Cantonment areas.

So the whole area has always been the playing ground of the ruling elite and counteracts. After the collapse of Makola in 1979 which led to the collapse of the central business district, one of the beneficiaries was this corridor. This was because the new class of elite found that was no longer safe or wise to go to the central business district to shop, and a few enterprising women began to sell some tabletop commodities here and there. By the mid 80s, Osu RE had become a sales hub. We must note though that at that time, Osu RE was mainly a nighttime affair; the capital of nightlife, it was not associated with daytime economic activities. No one planned that one day Osu RE would be like this, it was a blind interaction of economic forces that gave birth to the phenomenon of Oxford Street. It is just that economic opportunities presented itself and gradually everyone wanted to have a niche around the area. So it is a fascinating phenomenon because a marriage of global capitalism and local capitalism has produced a vibrant commercial avenue.

The only way it can be replicated is through planning. For example, people are saying that Spintex is becoming like Oxford Street. It is, but there is no comparison between Spintex and Oxford Street. It would take time. Spintex can only become like Oxford Street if they plan. When I talk about planning, I mean state level planning where there would be an agenda to actually make Spintex an alternative business district. If that is not done, it would rise and fall.

Osu Oxford Street still has a big advantage because it is not far from the real city centre. It is not far from all the main centers of power in the city. Spintex road is a different area; the neighborhoods that it will serve are completely different. The class and demographic structures of Madina, East Legon and Legon is not the same as Ridge, North Ridge and Nyaniba Estates. East Legon is new money and it will take a while for them to get consolidated. So even if a new Osu RE/Oxford Street emerges, the character of this place cannot be replicated.

GPP: What is your view about the housing system in Ghana?
AQ: I am impressed by Trassaco and many other developments but there is still a lot that needs to be done. The key question here is planning; if we do not plan, we would be in trouble. What would happen is that people will start buying lands and doing what they did at Kasoa. I view Kasoa as a wasted opportunity because it is not too far from Accra and would have released the pressure on the housing problems, but no one did anything about it so people just built indiscriminately. Kasoa is a blot on urban planning; it is a nasty piece of work. In the past, State Housing Corporation was responsible for planned areas like Haatso and West Legon where individuals bought pieces of land and built on them. These areas are generally better than Gbawe or Mallam, which are less well-structured. Places like Trassaco Valley however are exclusively planned.

I think there is room for more of those. For example the Aburi road has a vast land which is actually a more convenient place to live and commute to the city than a place like Kasoa. Aburi would be a good area for the State Housing Corporation to utilize to replicate something like Dansoman or Adenta, given all the facilities like water, electricity and so on. There is a hunger for those kinds of properties.

GPP: How does the current state of urban planning compare to times past?
AQ: State Housing Corporation has had planning models but there has not been enough money and monitoring has also been weak. So even though housing units are springing up, they are not part of an overall strategic plan. So people are building over pipes, underground electricity cables; anyone who knows anything about urban planning will know that it’s a complete mess.

Past low cost housing projects like Mamprobi and Chorkor were state sponsored. After Independence came Kanda and Nyaniba, all these models bear testimony to planning. What we need to do now is to place our housing needs in the 21st century within a larger strategy.

When you look at the road network, for example the new roads that are being constructed along the Achimota and Ofankor stretch; you can see that some of the properties there have encroached onto lands demarcated for road construction which means that some houses would have to be torn down. We all know that the State would have to pay compensation before tearing down those houses putting a greater financial burden on our resources.

GPP: Finally, what is the way forward for our housing industry?
AQ: Planning and government intervention. The state has to intervene at some point. If there is no state intervention, it is really going to be a mess.

As I see it, the lack of planning is the root of all urban evils.

BY: ANGELA AFOTEY