I would like to appeal to the President, John Agyekum Kufuor, and his NPP administration to draw up a comprehensive plan on the possibility of relocating the capital city of Accra to the northern part of the country, The haphazard developments, which do not conform to the city's plan, from the colonial era, have made the capital city of Accra very ugly. The lack of overhead crossings and pedestrian walk-ways has contributed greatly to the horrible traffic jams in the city. The shallow streets have been hijacked by the untouchable hawkers. The street hawkers have sworn to spill blood to remain in the streets of the city to sell their goods. Such developments would definitely lead to the breakdown of law and order in the city. A vibrant economy cannot be built on such nasty conditions in a capital city where indiscipline is the order of the day. The sanitation situation in the city is very horrible, with the whole city engulfed in filth and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly is helpless. The landscape is not a suitable choice for a capital city, and the land is too flat with river beds from the Akuapem Hills.When there is little rainfall, the whole of Accra City becomes flooded. It is an earthquake-prone area and not safe for human habitation. As if by design or for security purposes, most of the European countries have their capital cities located in the hinterland. Moscow in the Russian Federation, Paris in France, London in Great Britain and Berlin in Germany. Warsaw in Poland, Madrid in Spain, Sofiya in Bulgaria, Rome in Italy, and even Beijing in China have their capital cities faraway from the coast. The colonialists had their own agenda for siting the capital cities of their colonies along the coast. I am proposing a well planned capital city to be located in the northern part of the country, preferably in an area called Pigu. The new city, Pigu, should serve as an administrative capital and the city of Accra be maintained as commercial capital. The first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, in his own wisdom, built Tema as an industrial city. The cost of feasibility studies, planning, designing, resettlement and the actual construction of the new capital must be borne partly by the great people of Britain and their government. There is every justification for the request, because after centuries of colonisation and exploitation, no legacy was left for the people of Ghana to enjoy. After all, the Chinese are to build Bui City for Ghanaians. It is a gesture Ghanaians appreciate and are grateful to the people of China. There must be a universal policy for governments, whether CPP, NDC or NPP to build cities in all the regions in the next 50 years. It would balance the movement of people with profession and skills from place to place. This would help to accelerate the development of the nation. Like Piccadilly in Great Britain, business tycoons and our brothers in the Diaspora should be allocated a large tract of land between Kasoa and Winneba Junction to build a city in the Central Region. These people would have to be closer to the commercial capital (Accra) to transact their businesses, hence the choice of Central Region where sand winners are callously depleting the virgin land. An oil city should be built between Dixcove and Agona Nkwanta in the Western Region, now that oil has been found at Cape Three Point. That would take care of professionals and allied workers who would flock the oil fields to work. The government should seriously work in close connection with our Arab brothers in Brunei, Saudi Arabia and the likes to help fund the construction of the Oil City. Let us build a city where there would be no slums like Sodom and Gomorrah, Abuja and Nima which are in the heart of the city of Accra Let us build a city where sanitation would be effectively controlled to defeat the large army of mosquitoes. A capital city where human and vehicular traffic would flow freely. Let us build a city where water would flow through the taps every day. A special electricity transmission line from the Bui Dam to serve only the new capital city for continuous flow of power. The proposed railway line from Kumasi to Burkina Faso will open up the north for a faster development. It is only in this way that people from outside the country would leave the shores of their land to come and enjoy the greener climate of our country-side. A new city to the north would definitely change the economic fortunes and the social life of the people. People from the north would get jobs to do, educate their children and stop migrating to the already-choked city of Accra for menial jobs. The new capital city, PIGU, would also bring people in the north and south closer and would forge greater unity among Ghanaians. Source: Stephen Bosompem/Daily Graphic