East Legon as you know it was made up of Ga villages like Shiashie, Okponglo, Bawaleshie, Abotsiman, Mempehuasem, Otinshie etc.
Government acquired an area and designed a layout, called it Ambassadorial Enclave and attempted to lease them out to the growing Diplomatic community. They rejected it, of course it was too far from “civilization”.
Having completed the acquisition and layout already, govt had no option than to lease them out to interested members of the general public. Mostly, civil and public servants acquired them for a few reasons.
1. The layout had not been implemented on the ground, as in, there were no roads, drains or infrastructure. It was one large bush where people used to win sand in most places.
2. It was very far from the regular areas people preferred.
3. Because it was not interesting, the prices were relatively low and government also gave a very flexible payment plan.
Civil and public servants could afford to acquire them and pay small small for the future. Business people and the affluent at that time were not interested.
Around 1985, people started building slowly. One borga came from America to build their house in the middle of nowhere and put an American flag on top of it. It became known as the American House.
By the early 90’s many houses had sprouted and people had started moving there in droves. It was a quiet residential area but still didn’t have proper infrastructure like roads and drains.
As we like to do, many had bought but not built and so the newer acquisitions were not from the government since those were completely finished. These acquisitions spread to the lands which had not been acquired by government. That meant, some La and Teshie families which had lands there. The source of all the major litigations in East Legon can be traced to these roots of leases at that time and subsequent law suits.
Let me digress a bit.
Far away Adenta at a point in time was more preferable than East Legon to potential land owners just because SSNIT and State Housing had built estates there. It had infrastructure.
Similarly, until recently when the Mahama highway came, many preferred places like East Legon to Tse Ado and environs.
The opening up of the Adenta Highway and some major roads within East Legon made it more attractive and so more affluent and nouveau riche people began to come in.
Since there was no more land to be sold, the land stealing started. Land which had not been built on yet, suddenly found new owners who could build overnight.
So you people think that the Town and Country Planning Department of the Lands Commission of Ghana, designed East Legon’s layout and omitted to allow for Police Station, Fire Station and market?
They didn’t.
Find the original layout and you will know those who built on these lands.
Unfortunately, the peace and quiet of East Legon has been destroyed because the people supposed to implement the layout designed by Town and Country Planning Dept, turned a blind eye and Issued permits chakachaka like that.
They didn’t monitor and control development as they are supposed to do. The employee at the District Assembly in Ghana is the weakest link in our quest to develop as a nation.
East Legon is the new Osu. Can you take a wild guess as to where the new East Legon is? I won’t tell you because you won’t believe me anyway. And no, it neither has East nor Legon in its name.
