![\"Sanda](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Sanda.jpg\")
At the dusty, dirty, noisy and stinky trotro station (bus terminal) at Hohoe, I waited close to 2 hours for the minivan bound for Kpassa through Nkwanta to get full. A search on Google Map told me I had some 4 hours of journey to make to Nkwanta and an undisclosed period to Kpassa. I said a silent prayer as the van roared out of the station.<\/p>\n
The road was smooth for most part of the journey. It was as good as you can find in Accra.\u00a0I soon wondered why travellers on this stretch always complained about bad roads when this could actually pass for a ceremonial street in Accra.<\/p>\n
But after Nkwanta\u2026 the tables turned. I could have sworn we were travelling on one of the cattle tracks I used to ply back in the village when I was a herdsman. I think the vehicle was just being spurred on because the tyres are familiar with the ground after years of \u2018intercourse. 80% of vehicles from Accra might not be able to make the journey.<\/p>\n The scariest part of the journey comes when the driver covers his nose with one hand to avoid the dust while controlling the vehicle with the other. And this is one of the major roads used to cart goods and people from southern Ghana to the north and neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. It is also the connector between the food-hub in northern Ghana to the hungry mouths of the south.<\/p>\n Though I dreaded the consequences, I really prayed it would rain so I see how these parts look like after a downpour. I imagined there\u2019d be no movement of vehicles for days. I noticed dozens of trucks carrying livestock and tubers of yam- some continue to battle the road while others give up and break down.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the national capital, the President of the Republic has just cut the sod for the Streets of Accra Project which provides asphalt overlay on 76 kilometres of roads. Would it not have served the nation better if we diverted that cash to giving first coat bitumen to this major road? And please don\u2019t give me that story about the road has been \u201cawarded on contract\u201d bla bla.<\/p>\n The vehicle itself looks like scrap metal on wheels. With countless holes and ditches on the path ahead, what passengers endure throughout these hundreds of kilometres is the noise from a tired engine resting on rickety metal crying for grease.<\/p>\n These vehicles appear so old you\u2019d imagine them in a museum or as part of the metal used to construct coal pots. But with an engine that can whine and move; they are considered a major part of the transportation system of the 21st century Ghana.<\/p>\n For the first time in almost two decades, I saw a Datsun van with a body that looked like the toy cars we produced from milk tins when we were children playing in the village. The Datsun van was part of the first phase of \u201cproper\u201d vehicles that replaced wooden Lorries back in the days.<\/p>\n I remember one in particular, called London Boy, which conveyed my mother and other traders to Accra on Monday mornings. It could be detected miles away because of its distinctive sound and smell. With the emergence of mini vans and buses, Datsuns were relegated to carting charcoal, cattle and other goods before finally disappearing from the roads.<\/p>\n I always wondered where they were taken to until I came to these parts. It was nostalgic therefore to find a live one plying the paths of Kpassa and having human beings queue to get on board. If people in Accra thought the Willowbrook\u2019s buses operating around Kaneshie were a danger, then they\u2019d be singing Hallelujah after seeing these ones.<\/p>\n Closely behind the Datsun van was a Peugeot painted in the colours of a Taxi. It had a carrier obviously to take care of goods while passengers sat below. From the way it looked, I presume it is the most comfortable vehicle in this community and might most definitely be the vehicle of choice for weddings though it was registered about two decades ago.<\/p>\n I was privileged to be one of the passengers sharing the cabin with the driver and this meant I played the role of a hand brake. Because these vehicles can\u2019t remain still on their own and had no hand brakes to hold them down, it was my job to press down the brake pedal anytime the driver stepped out to open the door for passengers behind or to talk to a police officer at a check point.<\/p>\n I only take off my foot after the driver returns to his seat. The alternative is for the driver to place a stone behind the tyre as soon as he steps down. This stone is a special package he keeps by him through the journey to be used when the front passenger seat is unoccupied or when the passenger there is unwilling to stretch their leg across to hold down the brake pedal or when the stop was going to be a little longer for goods to be loaded or offloaded.<\/p>\n More than once, the driver forgot to pick the stone and we\u2019ve had to reverse for it.<\/p>\n These rickety vehicles cannot be said to have been operating illegally because I have seen more police check points in these parts than I have seen in Accra. At one check point, our driver gave a bribe to the lady officer in charge. She signalled to her colleague across the street that tonight\u2019s offertory is 3 Ghana Cedis. He nodded in approval and we were asked to move on.<\/p>\n Here, when a mini van driver loads 5 passengers instead of the legally approved 3 on a row, you look away and pretend you don\u2019t know your rights. People saw the work of the rickety van driver as a favour rather than a duty.<\/p>\n For the first time in many years, I\u2019ve had to pay for a bus ticket, leave my bag in the open space, go in search of food, go to the mosque and have a nap on one of the wooden benches before the remaining 17 passengers showed one after the other for the journey.<\/p>\n At the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, you risk losing contents of your bag even when you put it in your pants. I dread what would happen if you left it in the open trotro station to go roam.<\/p>\n As we journey further north, the contrast becomes striking. The green vegetation disappears exposing us to brown earth, brown trees and brown grass.<\/p>\n Amidst the dry atmosphere and dust, I saw women and children walking long distances in search of water. Some fetched from bridges, others, from natural dams while some fortunate ones got their water from boreholes dug by government and philanthropists.<\/p>\n The road worsened as we journeyed, but five minutes or so into Bimbila, the road miraculously became tarred. There was brisk business going on. Men, women and children rode on motorbikes while others sat atop trucks and Lorries on the principal streets of the town.<\/p>\n It was active and beautiful scenery. I heard the Muslim call to prayer at an unusually early time. I entered the mosque to offer prayers. When I re-emerged some 5 minutes later, the town was DEAD!<\/p>\n All the stalls had been hurriedly locked. The tables overturned and the street deserted. It was like rapture. There wasn\u2019t a single soul in sight. That\u2019s the reality of a curfew imposed on a community due to what in this instance, I term a senseless conflict. Why people who grew up in the same house would turn against each other over what I consider a stupid idea, I can\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n The privileges of being a journalist afforded me the opportunity to ride on a motorbike through the town in the night and observe. What I saw is a ghost town. All businesses had been closed. You can\u2019t even go to the pharmacy to buy medicine if you suffered a tummy upset. The pharmacies themselves are closed anyway. And you definitely can\u2019t visit the public toilet outside your house. I heard a noise from a locked wooden shop. I turned to look and noticed the noise was from dozens of young men watching a football game on television.<\/p>\n It was English Premier League night! Can you imagine not being able to remove your shirt and run to the streets to celebrate your club\u2019s victory? That\u2019s the cost of engaging in a senseless conflict.<\/p>\n I have reported on curfews since I started work as a journalist but never knew it was such a huge problem for people who live it daily. The bus I boarded at Damanku for instance hurriedly departed for Bimbila at 3pm, and that was the last bus for the day. At a given time, no vehicle enters or leaves the town. I\u2019ve read stories about these curfews but didn\u2019t know they were this harsh. My privileges afforded me the opportunity to consume a sumptuous yam fufu that night.<\/p>\n The journey to Tamale, the Northern Regional Capital, took me through another popular town in the region- Yendi. This town has been in the news for all the negative reasons since Yaa Naa Yakubu Andani II, who was overlord of Dagbon, died. This is one of the volatile areas in the Northern Region. A cursory look at the infrastructure in the whole town made me question what is there to fight and kill for.<\/p>\n Is it the sparsely built mud huts that serve as homes for the people? Definitely not. Some hard core politicians from the Dagbon area meanwhile, happily fuel this conflict to score cheap political points. Again, I saw a town in ruins.<\/p>\n Tamale is comparatively very huge. I saw dual carriage ways and gridlocks for the first time in a number of days. And of course, the phenomenal sight of motorbikes in traffic was beautiful, though, some riders showed recklessness. Tricycles serve as taxis here.<\/p>\n And of course, the police stood at intersections to flag down wrong doers among the riders but as you\u2019d expect, money exchanged hands and they soon sped off dangerously again. The city itself is beautifully partitioned. I particularly liked the Education Enclave where all the schools are located.<\/p>\n When I eventually began the journey down to Accra through Kumasi, I rejoiced that I need not buy massage balm for my body and a new set of handkerchiefs for covering my nose because this road is smooth and perfect.<\/p>\n As we swiftly cover the kilometres ahead of us, a thought struck me. A thought that said: how long would these people in this part of the country continue to live in abject poverty and for how long do they have to wait for their share of the national cake? Can you believe the whole of Bimbila Township has less than 5 kilometres of tarred road? I\u2019m referring to the same troubled Bimbila you\u2019ve so often heard about in the news. The same one represented in Parliament by the young and vociferous Deputy Minority Leader, Dominic Nitiwul. And oh, can you believe there\u2019s only one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,374,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Fulani-4.jpg\")
![\"Tubers](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Fulani-3.jpg\")
![\"When](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Fulani-1.jpg\")
![\"You](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Fulani-2.jpg\")
![\"Water](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Fulani-5.jpg\")
![\"Bimbila](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Fulani-7.jpg\")
![\"Motorbikes](\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Fulani-8.jpg\")
\n(www.umarusanda.blogspot.com)
\n–
\nBy Umaru Sanda Amadu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"