As I watched TV news on Wednesday night of August 12, 2026, I was saddened by pictures showing the devastation caused by “galamsey” done to Ghana’s landscape, particularly in relatively new “galamsey areas” of Northern Ghana, and the growing poisoning of the River Volta, with the pouring into it by tributaries of lead, cyanide, arsenic, mercury, etc.
I heard myself turn Julius Caesar’s defiant statement when he crossed the Rubicon on January 10, 49 BC, against the edicts of Rome’s rulers headed by Pompey, “alea iacta est” (the die is cast) into a question: “Is the die cast?”
With a heavy heart, I went to bed asking myself, is Ghana conceding defeat to “galamsey?”
Has the die been cast with leadership losing to galamseyers?
That night, I dreamt about an early book we read in English Literature in1966 titled “Cry, the Beloved Country,” by South African author Alan Paton in 1948.
In it, he bemoaned and lamented the inhumane/divisive apartheid governance system where whites were superior to backs.
Indeed, later that year, apartheid was formalised as South Africa’s governance system.
RTAs Again
As if the “galamsey” news in Northern Ghana affecting the Volta River was not bad enough, like many Ghanaians, I woke up the next morning, Thursday, August 13, 2026, to the news of another gory RTA, a topic I had told myself to suspend writing on for a while. It was simply captioned:
“11 killed, 13 injured at Ofankor!” Little did I think that so soon after my article in the Daily Graphic of May 2026 titled, “RTA – Carnage, Carnage, Carnage,” on the RTA that killed a lecturer and his Teaching Assistant, I would have cause to write another article on RTAs. It read;
Towards the end of World War 2 in 1945, Japan resorted to desperate measures as the end appeared to be in sight for them.
She trained pilots in the Japanese Air Force for suicide missions of crashing their planes loaded with explosives on any Allied targets they saw, especially warships.
They were the equivalent of today’s suicide bombers.
Today, such is the fury and ferocity of driving on the Accra-Tema Motorway! Unfortunately, this dangerous driving appears to be only the tip of the iceberg of dangerous driving in Ghana.
As for the commercial motor-bike riders called “okada,” weaving through traffic dangerously without helmets, and going through red lights with impunity appears to be their stock-in-trade.
What surprises me is that policemen at traffic lights appear to have accepted such misbehaviour by motor riders as normal.
Indiscipline
Many years ago, I took my driving test in a car with the Manual/Stick-shift gears.
Before then, my driving instructor from the Automobile Association (AA) told me/us that, if you do not drive in the correct gears, the vehicle will drive you by stalling on you and stopping.” I was also taught Defensive Driving and Road Courtesy.
Today, modern technology has replaced manual gear vehicles with automatic transmissions.
This has reduced driving to speeding hard and then jamming on the brakes for an instant stop!
Unfortunately, driving automatic vehicles demands very little thinking!
So drivers can afford to drive with one hand, while making a mobile phone call with the other.
Though I do not have statistics to support this, the thinking is that some accidents have been caused with loss of lives because the drivers were distracted while driving and phoning.
Unfortunately, drivers trading insults has become routine.
A common feature on our roads these days is a phenomenon I call “in-situ-repairs.”
When a vehicle breaks down in the middle of the road, it is fixed there with total disregard for the resulting traffic jam, whereas moving it a few metres off the road would prevent any traffic build-up.
At night, parked/broken-down vehicles in darkness become death-traps.
Way out
Elsewhere, driving offences are punishable by an increase in insurance premium for the offender.
Where it persists, the offending driver has his driving licence revoked.
Indeed, at the time of writing on Tuesday, 13th December 2017, the BBC announced the imposition of an eighty thousand dollar fine on Ivorian football star Yahaya Toure for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Additionally, he was banned from driving for eighteen months.
Again, very fast buses meant for ambulances in advanced countries, on decommissioning, are imported into Ghana and metal seats welded in them to play the role of passenger vehicles!
In the event of an accident, the welded metals do the killing of innocent passengers.
DVLA, why do you register decommissioned ambulances brought to Ghana as passenger vehicles?
Recklessly driving unroadworthy cars by drivers aside, our roads themselves are not car-worthy!
If the Police checked reckless drivers, ensured that vehicles are roadworthy, and prosecuted errant drivers, casualties from road traffic accidents will reduce.
This is on the assumption that the government will provide good and safe roads.
A combination of reckless driving, poorly maintained vehicles and bad roads makes driving very unsafe in Ghana.
Unfortunately, the Police do not appear to enforce breaches of driving regulations by arraigning offenders before the courts.
Mr IGP, why are vehicles with DP and DV plates speeding about so confidently?
It is only when the Police enforce road traffic laws rigorously that some Ghanaians will be forced to drive with common sense, and thus reduce the carnage on our roads.
Discussion
Carnage from RTAs appears to have become a daily phenomenon now with needless loss of lives.
The loss of the UCC lecturer and his young TA, Asmah, is an unfortunate reminder to the various agencies for road safety to up their game.
Apart from the 2,949 deaths in 2025, an even greater number were injured, with some maimed for life.
Like galamsey, RTAs do not appear to be given the desired seriousness it deserves.
Enforcement by applying the appropriate sanctions mentioned above, like hefty fines and, in some cases, a total ban for life, is necessary.
Irresponsibility which leads to death must not be tolerated.
National Road Safety Authority, DVLA, Ghana Police and associated agencies, arise and save Ghanaian lives! Above all, drivers must drive with common sense and not do the dangerous overtaking, one of which ended the lives of UCC lecturer Dr Agyemang and his Teaching Assistant Peter Asmah so tragically.
Comments
With the attribution of the Ofankor disaster to lack of lights at night, driver indiscipline, reckless driving, etc, how many more lives do we have to lose for DVLA, the Ghana Police and other Road Safety agencies, and above all government to wake up to their responsibilities to the ordinary Ghanaian?
From South African Alan Paton’s “Cry, the Beloved Country,” the attitude by our leadership appears more to me as, “CRY, the un-BELOVED country!” Need I say more? Leadership, lead by example/integrity/humility! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up!
The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya; Council Chairman, Family Health University, Teshie, Accra. E-mail:
