But for the timely intervention of a truck driver, some final-year junior high school students of Adanwomase in the Kwabre East District of the Ashanti Region couldn’t have written their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) on Thursday.
Videos showed over ten students aboard a Caterpillar truck to aid them cross a river, which had flooded the entire road, making it unmotorable.
Residents had already complained about the poor nature of the road a few weeks ago.
One of the aggrieved residents who spoke on Akoma FM‘s current affairs and political show GhanAkoma explained that “[it] was the saddest day in my life because when I saw the way the final year students were struggling to cross the road, I asked myself is this the Ghana Kwame Nkrumah fought for its independence?”
He explained that “already heavy potholes have riddled the entire road from Adanwomase through to Bonwire and Antoa so when the rains fell heavily last Wednesday night, it flooded the road and made it dangerous for the students including other residents to cross.”
He added “even salon cars and medium trucks couldn’t cross the flooded road”
According to eyewitnesses, the JHS students numbering almost 15 as well as other residents who had waited at the other side of the road for the water to recede for several hours resorted to a parked caterpillar truck and begged the driver to sail them through to their examination centre.
Assembly Member for Bamang Electoral Area Abayie Solomon, who joined the show later via phone, told host Aduanaba Kofi Asante Ennin that “several complaints and letters have been written to the assembly for immediate intervention to fix the road [but] have proven futile.”
Describing the final year students’ plights, he explained that the incident is a clear case study to describe the fatal nature of their roads.
By Nana Asenso Mensah|Akoma FM|3news.com|Ghana