Traveling from the Ahanta West District of the Western Region to Takoradi has graduated from annoying to frustrating. From a mere manageable nuisance to a rather scary adventure.
If you are familiar with that stretch don’t think too far, it has gone beyond the Shenanigans at the Police barrier, you can treat it as a topic for another day.
As a taxpayer your quest for a “jolly ride” on that stretch is always cut short right from the Municipal Capital, Agona Nkwanta, whether you use the Axim-Tarkwa bypass or the Agona Market road to get to Takoradi, you are always forced to question what your taxes and road tolls are used for.
Here is why
For those who are not conversant with the area….
This particular stretch of road is the only corridor linking the Western Region to the Western North Region through Tarkwa and Bogoso and most importantly, the Nzema Area to neighboring Cote d’ Ivoir.
Let’s now get back to the why!
both sides are interestingly are riddled with both minor and deep potholes and this does not end for those traveling to Takoradi, drivers have a hell time of being extra cautious.
The holes and ill patching at some portions make drivers who ply that stretch masters of swerving and dodging potholes.
One needs to be more than careful and attentively focused driving on that stretch at night especially if your highlights are as dim as your dim light and your dim lights really dim.
Many have not survived on that road, some due to reckless driving admittedly, but others due to no fault of theirs but for the lack of maintenance on that stretch.
By Grace you have manoeuvred and meanded your your way through. You’re gone past all the bumps and nearing Apowa, welcome to the real hassle. Ideally, Apowa to Takoradi should be maximum 15-20 minutes depending on your means of transportation and situation at the Police Barrier at Apremdo if the men in black are “working” you spend more than 40 minutes in traffic but like I said earlier issues of the barrier can be topic for another day, and least I forget, this stretch of road carries everything good, bad, heavy, light or thin, to and from the Western part of the Region(West of Takoradi).
Talk of industrial machines and equipment to and from the Takoradi Port, Cocoa from the Region’s hinterlands to the port, back in Ghana’s timber days every log from the now Western North used that road. Heavy duty haulage trucks, and now Gas tankers to and from Atuabo all ply this road. About 80 percent of resources from the Region can’t avoid this road. Many of the residents hold this storm believe that the haulage of bauxite and Manganese some time past is to blame for its sorry state now.
A few meters away from Ghacem estate junction at Apowa is a rump which welcomes you to the Apowatownship. The speed rump is currently over doing its duty of controlling speed and rather causing vehicular traffic.
A side of the rump has developed into a trench such that patriots have to scoop water when it rains heavily to save unsuspecting drivers from falling into it this is because they have recorded several scenarios.
You can imagine the minutes each vehicle takes to mount that rump even on a sunny day.
Once you are off that rump you approach the Mpohor and Adjoa junctions and you brace up for another round of dancing to the sound and rhythm of your engine and movement of the vehicle; it’s a mess here, the bitumen layer at this portion of the road has been ripped off, parts of the pedestrian walk way layed with pavement blocks have caved in because the double road has become so narrow and even for the trotros and taxis because everyone wants to swerve the ditch hence the bullys, heavy loaded haulage trucks decide to spread thier wheels. In the wake of saving your vehicles joints, bolts and knots as well as your shock absorbers other vehicles pile up behind you and then we all create a traffic jam.
Mind you there is a buss-top close by and also an intersection which takes you in and out of Mpohor and the Apowa main Lorry station imagine the twist, the turnings and the wait.
Now you have already spent over 30/40 minutes just to get out of Apowa. You made it, finally you get to enjoy a smooth ride well this is shot lived because right after the Saint Mary’s Boy’s SHS is another ditch developing …it’s grown from the small pot hole to a man hole as many would best describe it. It began on the right edge of the road and is fast eating into the next lane.
If you are traveling In The afternoon you are a little safe at this point of your journey but if you are commuting like me and the hundreds of others in the morning, you will flashback to however you got to that side of Town….well there is nothing you can do abt it so u sit and just become a time keeper by reading your watch for time because and again depending on the situation at the Police barrier you might be speeding the next 10 or 15 minutes or more in traffic just waiting your turn to be checked or otherwise…..
congratulations you made it past the check point let’s get to Tadi, wait not yet before you get to Apremdo you begin to apply your brakes sometimes from as far as on the bridge and move slowly again as you bid Ahanta West good bye and enter the Effia KwesiImintsim Metropolitan Assembly which also welcomes you with another productive time waisting portion.
It started like an ordinary pot hole but has developed beyond that and radio 360 severally drew the attention of EKMA to it but the response had always been we are talking to Highways for over 6months the best to happen there has been to fill it and wait for the rains at least nobody will complain about it.
You are gradually inching into the oil city Takoradi and until you get to the popular Edzii roundabout now Kwame Nkrumah round about you don’t heave a sigh of relief because you are still on the road to Tadi and anything can happen say what…
We just got to The Apollo Taffic light which positively takes some of the little time we have to get to our destination, hurray we crossed it to the Kwesiminstim stretch it’s quite rough but smooth due to the funny patching and again the “little foxes” (potholes) which have started developing on that once smooth stretch.
Another traffic light, just endure.
We however must commend EKMA for bringing sanity here because in time past we would have had another hell of a time here at the kwesiminstm bus stop which was used by the drivers as a station instead of just alighting and picking who is available, they park and wait for poeple in thier homes to come and board the car, I guess you are calculating the time you would have wasted at this point if that situation still persisted, for this one Ekma do all
You are finishing hard but you have to start thinking of a possible excuse to give for being late better still you can call to give a situational report so the receiver can feel the ambience “some” to validate your excuse, for most guys you will hear
“ I make late small I Dey road top Dey come traffic Dey…..,those who are not lucky and are called either hang up and continue the fight alone or try to explain their point to you who is also seriously formulating your excuse.
Sometimes they are left with no choice than venting their anger on the drivers, the unlucky ones have drivers who match them squarely.
Anyways it gets to this point because the last two laps of the journey are as equally annoying and fraustrating as the beginning.
The first is from Sawmill to the Airport Ridge Traffic light my goodness sometimes you want to make it a prayer topic that that Traffic light should not work because for some unknown reason the traffic light creates an unpleasant traffic jam. Some drivers divert th right Airport Ridge residential area.
Diversion or not we all buckle up for the last straw that will always brake the camel’s back … once you finally make it past the Airport Ridge Traffic light you check you time and begin another calculation because you are in another long queue which won’t move anytime soon if you have a heavy duty truck ahead of you because it will take all the time in the world to move and stop and you can’t fault him it’s justified.
A replica of the Apowa worn out rumble strip is fast developing right before the cemetery. From the day it was mounted all it has caused is distress to many granted it is to ensure safety, if u ever happen to use that rump check if it is safe for use in its current state.
Iron rods have been exposed… . On that rump even the haulage and articulator trucks and other big trucks bow to it how much more a rickety kwesiminstim trotro or that nice Toyota camary used as a Taxi.
You have climbed that mountain congratulations you are approaching STMA here you have every right to caution your driver because he or she now has the chance to show you his or her driving skills from the cemetery to Edzi now Kwame Nkrumah roundabout.
This is the only stretch you get to separate the “boy drivers from the men drivers”… “it’s always funny at this point.”
To conclude only two things stand out clear our lack of maintenance is killing us every bad road which has seen “cotar” (bitumen) before started with a little opening which developed into manhole and further an unavoidable ditch when ignored and like cancer or corruption it eats slowly into the earth Crust gradually extends and finally becomes an “epicenter”
The other pressing one is our inability to open more road corridors to several destinations. Western Region’s roads have suffered such due to this. We can only boast of one major by pass in Takoradi (the Intankoful by pass which carries traffic from beyond the Ahanta West area to Out of Takoradi. Interestingly this links to the only road to The Cape Coast first them to Kumasi and The Capital Accra. A few areas with other possible openings are so bad and hence most people are forced to risk it or share our only international pot holes ridden highway
Our road engineers should spare us the hell of wasting productive time on commuting or traveling via road by pushing for regular maintenance on our roads and saving us from the self-made contractors who cash in on such situations, they are doing a good job saving a situation but sometimes their intervention worsens the case
This piece was motivated by just a question I asked myself one afternoon when I realized I spent the normal 10 to 15 minutes to get to Apowa from Takorad…I couldn’t help but enjoy the jolly ride In my Apowa-bound trotro home passed my junction to see for my self the magic that has eased traffic in an unusual way.
I got to another surprise ditches filled cars moving but the dust from the material used for the leveling is another hazardI in the making; am told it was an intervention by a private company in the area Diamond Cement, this would be the third time it has done this so I ask where is Government when it comes to development? What happens after the rains which seem to be given us another rainy season after August ?
The people are demanding that the road is done else the usual “we will advice our selves” the Assembly Memeber for Apowa Electoral area Nicholas Nyarko tells me.
Our next stop ?????
I am spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing very deplorable roads to write on in my locality alone…
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/ Nana adwoa Hagan/ Empire FM
