Complete Dikpe Bridge to save lives —- Law lecturer
Following the death of seven students from the Lawra Senior High School on June 14, 2025, a Senior Law Lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Kaaka Dello-Ziem, has appealed to the government to revisit the Dikpe Bridge project started by the former government and complete it.
He said the project was very strategic to the development of Lawra as a municipality and an important link between Ghana and Burkina Faso.
Mr Dello-Ziem, who is a native of Dikpe, said many lives of residents trying to cross to the other side of the river had been lost and believed that the incident last week was an indication for the government to complete the project.
Incident
On June 14, 2025, seven members of the cadet corps of the Lawra SHS drowned in the Black Volta at Dikpe while trying to cross to the Burkina Faso side.
The canoe on which they were crossing capsized midway and seven out of the 10 students who were aboard the canoe drowned.
The seven, five girls and two boys, have since been buried.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Dello-Ziem who is a former Dean of the Faculty of Law and Business of the Accra Metropolitan University (formerly Laweh University College), said the bridge when constructed, would boost economic activities between Ghana and Burkina Faso and also contribute to the infrastructural development of communities around the area.
He said the blueprint had already been developed, and it should be possible for the two countries to collaborate to complete the project.
He explained that both Burkinabes and Ghanaians had lost their lives while crossing the river and “the canoe they use is not even safe or designed for carrying passengers,” adding that people, including fisherfolk, had been maimed by hippopotamus and crocodiles that inhabit the river.
“Thousands of people ply that route to carry out business between the two countries and when completed it could improve trade between the two countries and even Cote d’Ivoire and improve inte-African trade between Ghana and her neighbours.”
Bridge project
In October 2020, former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo cut the sod for the construction of the two-way 275 metres long and 70 metres wide Dipke Bridge to link Ghana and Burkina Faso.
As part of the project, there would be the construction of a mini market consisting of facilities for a police station, offices for the Immigration Service and the Customs and Excise Prevention Service, a toll plaza and an axle load weighing station.
