By Nutor Bibini Nutor
When the Akosombo dams were recently spilled, its attendant flood disaster swept through many communities in Volta, Oti and Greater Accra.
Poor sprawling scattered villages along the Oti river in the Krachi East district, especially Tokuroano town, are mainly fisherfolk who also farm to keep the peasant families going.
These rural folks were devastated when the spillways of the Bagre and Akosombo dams were opened.
During the flood disaster, all eyes went on their compatriots downstream in the North and South Tongu districts, with no help extended to the suffering poor in Krachi East.
When the GBC news team received an SOS call, and upon reaching Ayirafie-Battor- the major market at Tokuroano, we were surprised to find the rural folks still practicing the barter system, where food items are exchanged for fish and other food items. Market women had travelled from far and near to trade alongside the cash economy.
This means that if one did not have money to buy the desired produce, she could trade farm produce in hand for fish.
But that did not negate the hardship resulting from the loss of large tracts of farms.
Next on the itinerary was to hit the eight island communities of Tokuroano through a boat ride with market women from Ayirafie-Battor.
The situation on the Island of Nyekonakpoe post flood disaster was, to say the least, sorry. Here, trees along the banks of the river were hanging dangerously because the flood washed away the sand beneath them. This tree, for instance, fell recently after weeks of sitting on flood waters. Many buildings, mostly mud houses, could not stand the recent floods and therefore caved in.
The only school in Nyekonakpoe is this 3-unit classroom facility without a staff common room or desks. Part of the already cracked school caved in, as it could not stand the force of the flood waters. Today, most of the learners have stopped going to school for fear, and it is just a matter of time before the whole school could collapse.
This local church, the Gospel Church of Ghana, also had parts fall to the ground, with the soggy floor showing signs of a devastating flood from the recently spilled dams.
The villagers say church attendance has waned. In the first week of the Akosombo dam spillage, most houses here at Tokurano-Nyekonakpoe collapsed. Their kitchens, toilets and bathrooms sank in the flood waters. Their fishing gear and personal effects were lost to the floods, leaving these rural fisherfolk in a sorry state. Like the other seven islands of Tokuroano, their livelihoods, especially the smoked fish that were ready for market, are all gone, making these poor fisherfolks poorer.
They say, apart from a few used clothes they had from a charity organisation, Oti Youth Training Empowerment and Agric, no help has been extended to them. The island folks of Nyekonakpoe are pleading for urgent assistance to rebuild their school, collapsed houses, and toilet facilities in order to end the open defecation. They are also sending a distress signal to philanthropists to assist with the building of quarters for their teachers, a health centre as they ferry the sick across the Oti River, which sometimes leads to the loss of the sick before they reach the nearby health facility at Worawora, among others.
Until then, Nyekonakpoe, like the other seven islands of Tokuroano, such as Beposo Number One, Two and Three, Kisekorpe, Agbelitime, Dadeto, and Tewekpo, are on their own with no help in sight.
