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Help educate pedestrians to use Madina-Adentan footbridges - Alhaji Boniface urges media

The media must partner with government to educate pedestrians on the need to use the newly constructed footbridges on the Madina- Adentan highway, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina Constituency, in Accra, has urged.

According to him, so many resources have been pumped into the project to ensure public safety only for some pedestrians to refuse using the bridges, and still preferred crossing the road, despite the danger their actions posed.

Alhaji Boniface, who is also Minister of State at the Office of the Vice President, said this had raised a lot of questions as to what they wanted to achieve by adopting that recalcitrant attitude.

The MP was responding to questions at the meet-the-press forum organised by the La-Nkwantanang Madina Municipal Assembly (LNMMA) on the type of sanctions to be applied on people who refused to use the footbridges.

Work on the abandoned footbridges was re-awarded in November last year, following violent demonstrations by Adantan residents, after more than 24 death and 64 injuries were recorded on the road.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when a female student of West Africa Senior High School (WASS) died on the spot when she was knocked down and killed by a taxi in front of the school.

The spontaneous reaction from the residence compelled the government to award the project to six new contractors to ensure early completion and save pedestrians and motorist from further agony.

Each contractor was given April 30 deadline, but investigations conducted by the Ghanaian Times revealed that three of the contractors at the Madina Redco Flats, Zongo and Atomic junctions faced serious challenges in the relocation of major utilities lines, thus delaying completion of their work.

Though the Zongo junction footbridge is currently being used by some people, others have refused to use it.

Alhaji Boniface said those who refused to use the facility incredibly claimed they were in a hurry and would not have the time to use the footbridges, but instead, preferred risking their lives to cross the road at dangerous points.

“It is rather unfortunate that the media is silent on this unacceptable attitude of the people in whose interest the state constructed the footbridges; I am pleading with the media to devote a fraction of their time to sensitise those recalcitrant pedestrians on the dangers of their actions, as that can result in an accident which may maim or kill them,” he said.

BY LAWRENCE VOMAFA AKPALU

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