The Accra-Kumasi road that forgot how to move
The sun was honest when I left Kumasi, promising Tema in four, maybe five hours.
But promises melt on the Accra-Kumasi Road.
Last Friday, April 17, 2026 ,it took eleven hours to arrive.
The road forgot how to move.
I set off on that Friday from Kumasi to Tema. Google Maps said 4 hours 37 minutes.
Experience said “budget five with a fufu pitstop.” Reality delivered eleven.
The road forgot how to move.
It took two hours just to reach Nkawkaw.
That stretch alone used to be the warm-up.
When I finally exited Nkawkaw, the clock read 12:03 pm.
I heard the prompt on my Google maps that there was an hour and 12 minutes delay because of road works, but I did not take it too seriously; my mistake.
I should have been nearing Linda Dor or Bunso. Instead, five more hours evaporated and I was nowhere near the toll booth before Enyiresi.
Five hours to cover what should take forty minutes.
Indiscipline, disorderliness
This is no longer “traffic.”
The road simply would not move.
In that crawl, Ghanaian nature reveals itself.
Indiscipline and disorderliness are our mainstay.
The badly behaved drivers show up like vultures to a carcass.
Shoulders become illegal fast lanes and trust the Voxys to lead the pack.
DV-registered cars fix sirens and blue lights to their dashboards and wail with sirens; complete lawlessness.
Tricycles, buses, tankers, all locked in a gridlock with no solution.
Everyone is desperate. And so, no one moves.
Where were the police? Present, and powerless.
I saw them. Even soldiers on their private funeral missions joined — total chaos.
They were overwhelmed.
This country cannot police away an absence of infrastructure so we will continue to sweat in it, cars broke down to overheating and fuel burnt for hours. Ghana is gradually forgetting how to move.
My plea
What saved me and a few others was the uncompleted Anyinam Bypass.
No markings, no lights, just graded earth and the goodwill of someone walking by the roadside: The bypasses work.
Even unfinished, they still work.
Finish the bypasses.
We cannot wait for the new Accra–Kumasi Expressway.
The promise of a modern, limited-access highway is the right vision.
But visions don’t ease today’s 11-hour nightmares.
My direct plea to the Ministry of Roads and Highways:
Audit and immediately restart all stalled bypasses, and deploy emergency traffic management to make it convenient for commuters.
While that is ongoing, it is also about time that recalcitrant drivers are made to face the consequences of their indiscipline.
Bypass crucial
The Accra–Kumasi Road should not confine the people of Ghana; it must move us. Let us correct the policy flaw.
Let’s say it loud: We cannot wait for the Accra–Kumasi Expressway alone; we need the bypasses completed, not stalled. Not promised. Paved.
The writer is the President of the Ghana Institute of Architects
