State of our roads, state of our nation
It has been one of those busy, energy-sapping weekends laden with unavoidable social events.
One wedding and two funerals in Kumasi, followed by a quick dash to Mumford, near Apam via Accra for another funeral on Sunday, with an overnight stop in Winneba to celebrate the Aboakyer festival at the invitation of some friends, before heading back to Accra on Monday morning.
In anticipation of the gruelling weekend, I thought I would mitigate my bodily pains by flying the Accra-Kumasi-Accra leg, even if it meant pushing myself to the brink of bankruptcy.
With my rather tight schedule, I could not afford the ‘leisure’ of several hours of road travel, which the route has become notorious for as a test of endurance in recent times.
I could certainly not afford a rerun of my epic 15-hour road journey between the two cities in 2021, which I complained about on this page.
The road from Accra to Mumford is in quite a perilous state, but since no flights operate the route, I had no choice.
For a few fanciful minutes, I caressed the thought of acquiring, or at least renting, a private Gulfstream jet one day to ferry me around on busy weekends. One glorious day…
Flights over roads
With hindsight, it was a good decision to take to the skies for part of my travels.
When I read tales on various social media platforms about long, intolerable delays on the Accra-Kumasi stretch, I felt vindicated, but at the same time, I felt terrible.
Vindicated because I would otherwise have missed out on some of these social events I had been invited to, and terrible (bordering on guilt) because the vast majority of those who had been stuck in that nightmare, and who do not have the voice to influence policy or change, could not have afforded to fly.
I could not help but note that the flights to and from Kumasi over the weekend were full, with a liberal dash of black cloths, with more than a few well-known public faces.
Many who would otherwise travel by bus or drive go out of their way to fly because they are not prepared to endure hours of crawling on the road.
Even an accident on the road can cause endless misery to traffic.
Of course, the airlines are cashing in, and I am rather surprised that there are only two carriers operating the particularly lucrative Accra-Kumasi route, which draws heavily from the funeral industry.
As I subsequently pondered over the gridlock, I recalled a piece I wrote on this page in February this year, titled ‘Public problems, private solutions; a national tragedy’. I wrote;
The inclination by those with the means to find private solutions to public problems manifests itself in other interesting ways.
Unstable power? Buy a generator.
Taps not running? Dig a borehole in your backyard.
Derelict public hospitals?
Sign up with a swanky private hospital. Poor public schools?
Get your child into any of the posh local private schools, or better still, ship them abroad.
Bad roads? Get a four-wheel drive vehicle to absorb the shocks, or better still, fly if possible.
High crime, noise pollution and urban decay?
Gated communities.
The list goes on and on.’
Political bickering, our bane
After almost seven decades of independence we are still bickering over whose fault it is that we have not dualised the road from Accra to Paga, and claiming partisan little victories for the parts that actually look like a proper, major intercity road.
This is nothing short of scandalous.
Someone once suggested that the state of the Accra-Kumasi road reflects the state of our nation.
Others have made the same assertion regarding the Accra-Tema motorway.
I bet many will agree.
For what it is worth, the sheer volume of trade carried between Accra and Kumasi and beyond, all the way into landlocked neighbouring countries, makes it an urgent imperative that it should be widened.
It makes economic sense. For a distance of only 202kms, a road journey between Accra and Kumasi should not take beyond five hours by public transport.
In my 2001 article on this page regarding my 15-hour nightmare (which still rankles), I wrote that “beyond dual carriageways, we have to look at the concept of bypasses to free up traffic as pertains in many countries, and has been done in Nsawam and Nkawkaw.
Konongo, Kasoa, Mankessim and Sekondi also need attention, failing which I believe overhead passes as exist at the Atomic Junction in Accra or the one at Suhum could come in handy.”
I stand by those words and believe these should be given utmost priority.
For as long as those whose voices matter turn away from the pressing issues of our day, perhaps for fear of being drawn in, tagged and pilloried in the political bear pit of this country, we will keep going in circles and rehashing our stories over and over again.
‘I am minding my business’ never brought change.
We cannot keep going back to the same issues time and again, with partisan political hues whilst breathing fire, only to go back to sleep when the outrage has passed.
It is quite numbing and exhausting.
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng.
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