Hit-and-run sparks spontaneous protest on Madina-Adenta-Aburi highway

A young lady, was on Friday night knocked down by a car on the Adenta stretch of the Madina-Adenta-Aburi highway.

The lady, popularly referred to as Ataa, was crossing the Madina-Adenta-Aburi highway with the boyfriend at the area near the SDA Intersection when the vehicle knocked her down at about 8pm.

Passers-by claim that another speeding vehicle run over her when she fell upon the first impact.

Both vehicles sped off.

Agitation

Irate youth at the scene alleged that when the Adenta Motor Traffic and Transport Division (MTTD) was called for help to transport the victim to the hospital, they delayed and Ataa lay by the side of the road, where she had been pulled to by sympathisers, until she died.

The incident angered the youth, who blocked the highway for about an hour and a half with mini-billboards, stones, big yellow gallons, popularly referred to as 'Kufuor gallon', wooden boards and stones.

The angry residents also burnt tyres and pelted vehicles caught in the traffic with sachet water.

While doing that, they chanted and sang, "fix our footbridges!" "Fix our footbridges!"

Intervention

It took the intervention of the Adenta MTTD to talk to the youth for vehicles, held up in traffic to start moving again.

That was after the police had taken the corpse away.

The boyfriend of the young lady, visibly shaken and distraught, had to be taken away in a taxi by some friends.

Highway

Since January 2018, more than 118 people have died on the Adenta stretch of the highway, which has no pedestrians crossing.

The six footbridges at vantage points between the Madina-Adenta stretch started after the completion of the highway, have remained uncompleted.

The death toll on the stretch has mobilised the youth of Adenta to begin a campaign to get officials to complete the bridges.

Their appeals, however, has not yielded results, with the Ministry of Roads, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Roads and Highways, as well as the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) acknowledging the receipt of the letters by the youth, but not acting.

The highway leads to the Peduase Lodge, the presidential retreat and recreational mansion.

Some distraught residents interviewed, some in tears because they knew the deceased, said they felt let down because those responsible seemed not to care.

They wondered whether the bridges would not have been completed immediately, if the relative of a politician, parliamentarian or even the president himself had been knocked down on that stretch.

Some also wondered if those responsible would not have found the funds to complete the footbridges if the president's convoy were involved in an accident there.

Writer's email: caroline.boateng@graphic.com.gh