Needless for me to attempt to overemphasize or highlight the economic benefits and importance of the 75Kms Bawku to Bolga road to the people of Bawku in particular, and the country as a whole. Bawku is the economic hub of the Upper East Region which also serves as an inter-trade link between business men and women from that part of Ghana and their Togolese counterparts from Cinkasi.
I believe that about 80% of the people of Bawku engages in business activities in one way or the other and therefore travels much, from Bawku to Togo and or from Bawku through to Bolga to connect to the southern part of Ghana to do business. The 75Kms road, I also believe, that one should not take more than one hour to travel from Bawku to Bolga if the road were to be in a good shape like a normal motorable road. However, the unfortunate and sadden reality is that, vehicles plying that road takes about two and half hours at least, to travel from Bawku to Bolga. A journey that should not go beyond one hour. This I believe tells you how deplorable the road is and the kind of headache passengers and vehicle owners have to go through just to make ends meet. To the ordinary passenger traveling, time is of essence. To the business man or woman, time is money. To the vehicle owner, unmotorable road affect the life span of the vehicle which in turn affects him/her economically.
My concern really is that, Gov’t is doing nothing to make life better for the people from that part of the country as far as the deplorable road situation is concern. I still remember the countless times I heard presidents, starting from Jerry Rawlings in 1992 and to Atta Mills and I guess John Dramani in their various annual sessional address to parliament, telling the entire nation and particularly the good people of Bawku that, they have made budgetary allocation to put the road in its proper good shape and that, in their own words, “work is expected to start very soon.” How very soon, the good people of Bawku have been waiting since 1992 for work on the construction of the road to start. But if one may ask: Were our presidents lying to the people of Bawku? Did they really make budgetary allocation to get the road constructed? Did the money allocated if any at all, been used to do patching of potholes and building speed ramps instead of reconstructing the road? Well, your answers to these question are equally as good as mine, I guess.
But in all these, who is to be blamed? The people of Bawku or the Gov’t of the day? Maybe it is the Gov’t. Maybe it should as well be you and I for not demanding from the Gov’t why the road is still the way it is if not worst since 1992. Maybe it should be you and I because we are not demanding answers from our elected representatives why the road is still as it was several years back. Maybe it should be you and I for not going on a peaceful demonstration to draw Gov’t attention to our need. And maybe it is our elected representatives who are not lobbying at the highest level to get the needed attention of Gov’t to our plight. Or maybe the Gov’t must just be the one to blame for not doing anything about it promise to the people.
It is the humble prayer and hope of the good people of Bawku that the Gov’t of the day, as a matter of important, and understanding that the good people of Bawku deserve a better road network, will seriously consider reconstructing the road to make life bearable to the people. That road is a death trap and Gov't must not wait for countless accidents to happen before she start to pretend to be doing something for the people or when it is election time. The time to act is now!
Ras Iddi Wuni Jnr.
iddiwuni@yahoo.com
