Residents have to make do with rickety buses as there are no other options
It has been just a day after an accident had claimed some seven lives in the Bawku West District in the Upper East Region and yet passengers travelling to Bawku and Zebilla from Bolgatanga seem to have thrown caution to the wind.
Many were seen busily jumping on the rickety buses that the Bawku lorry station had paraded for the travelling public on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, May 8, DAILY GUIDE visited the Bawku lorry station to interact with the station officers and passengers a day after the horrifying accident, and the visit revealed that nothing had changed, as the same old rickety mini-buses were still on scale to carry passengers.
On Monday, May 7, some seven passengers on board a Nissan Urvan mini bus with registration GR-9895-N lost their lives after the bus from Bolgatanga to Bawku ran into an articulated truck that had been parked on the shoulder of the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road, precisely at the Yikurugu side of the road in the Bawku West District.
The mangled remains of the Nissan Urvan Mini bus suggested that the bus had a weak body, while the truck parked at the shoulder of the road also raised questions as to whether there as a warning sign or triangle mounted to alert oncoming vehicles.
At the time of filing this report, four of the passengers on board the minibus who survived the accident were still on admission at the Bawku Presbyterian Hospital.
Passengers do not have a choice than to use whichever bus is available for them to travel with.
Many of the buses have weak wobbling bodies with strong engines and so can speed on the dusty, sandy, multi-potholed Bolga-Bawku road. Many have bad lighting system and are therefore not safe to travel with at night or at dawn.
Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament for the Zebilla Constituency, Frank Fuseini Adongo, has visited the accident scene and has sent his condolence to the bereaved families.
