“NADMO seeks to enhance the capacity of society to prevent and manage disasters and to improve the livelihood of the poor and vulnerable in rural communities through effective disaster management, social mobilisation and employment generation.”
NADMO VISION
What! Incroyable! This is beyond imagination! A railway train bought with the tax-payers money hitting a truck on the railway line while doing a test-run? We are beside ourselves recounting the accident. And the 97km-railway line from Tema to Mpakadan costing the nation $500 million (with Export–Import Bank of India offering Ghana $399 million), suffering a jolt.
Are we serious in Ghana? What angle does one take in assessing this accident? International, historical, local, political, religious or sociological?
Recall the sinking of the Titanic, the world’s largest passenger steamship in the Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg in Newfoundland, Canada, during its maiden voyage with about 2200 passengers on board on April 15, 1912. About 1,500 people died in this disaster, the remaining about 700 were saved by the ship, Carpathia.
In less than two and a half hours, the Titanic launched in Belfast Ireland by the White Star Liner, the luxurious ship described as ‘unsinkable’ had sunk burying alive many affluent passengers, including businessmen, Isidor Straus, writer Jacques Futrelle, wealthiest passenger John Jacob Astor, American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, the Titanic designer Thomas Andrews and Pastor John Harper.
Coming home, one can recall the Ama Dela tragedy of August 17, 1985 when a newly launched fishing vessel capsised and drowned 50 people who had gone on board for a cruise shortly after the unveiling of the vessel. It was a 35-footer motor vessel constructed by KOFIFO Boatyard Company Limited, and owned by Somen Fisheries Limited foundered and tumped over about 15 metres from the Tema Wharf, after negotiating a curve to return to the quay.
While not boring readers of non-payment of compensation to the survivors, note may be taken of some of the survivors who include Joe Otchere and Gamel Nkum of Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL). Historically, we recall the lugubrious and dismal tale of the drowning of 14 school children in a pit in Akoto Lante, Accra in the same year, 1985.
So, what caused the accident at Abortia?
We may look at Farrell’s theory of accident causation which says that accident causation is attributed to a chain of events ultimately caused by human error. Did the driver of the truck on the railway line leave the truck deliberately? What was the motive? Was it a plan by ‘some persons’ to go down in history as having sabotaged a major event? Did the package of the train include a rail-car (we used to call it ‘afa’) which could smartly monitor the railway track to ensure that the track was clean of obstacles? What did the Railway Company itself do? Was there a ‘system failure’? And many more similar questions.
So, the Juapong Circuit Court sentences the 41-year-old truck driver, Abel Dzidotor to six months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to three out of the four charges, which included inconsiderate driving and causing unlawful damage. The judge, His Honour Prosper Deu-Love Gormashie took into consideration the mitigating factors of the culprit’s marriage, care for his three children and the guilty plea at first instance – Dzidotor did not waste the court’s time.
Perhaps the driver who used an unapproved route to cross J.J. Rawlings’s motorcade on the Tema Motorway in which four of J.J’s bodyguards – Ewum-Tohma, Boateng, Aboagye and Kumashie in October 2000 were killed could have received a similar ‘mitigated’ sentence if he had not ‘died’ too soon under police custody, at Cantonments.
The newspapers report that accomplices of Dzidotor have been arrested. The four – Kokuo Koudjo, Patrick Kwaku Sosu, Alaza Prosper and Fiadugbe Emmanuel – were arraigned for allegedly aiding convicted Abel Dzidotorto to cause unlawful damage to the train. Koudjo bought some blocks from a block factory at Juapong and conveyed same to Abortia using the underpass of the railway line. According to the prosecutrix, after discharging the blocks at Koudjo’s site, they decided to avoid the underpass and cross the railway line with their vehicle. She stated that all the accused persons, being fully aware that the railway line was inaccessible to motor vehicles, still decided to use the railway line as a shortcut to get to Juapong.
She told the court that when they arrived at the railway line and realised that it was impossible to cross over the tracks, they decided to gather stones from the sides of the track, which they placed on the railway line to serve as a path for the truck to cross over.
And the big one: The “conflict theory” that individuals and groups within society interact on the basis of conflict rather than agreement. And many people are buying into the political twist of the accident. Outwardly and inwardly, the NPP appear to be accusing the NDC of having a hand in the accident.
Political analysts ask relevant questions. One: Do you think NDC will be happy about the success of the NPP railway project? Two: This is an election year, and NPP will be scoring points if the project goes through. If it succeeds, NPP will be adding to its credit the success of free SHS and the success of Agenda 111 Hospital Projects.
And John Mahama who had once said “NDC was born out of a Revolution,” enters the fray. He asks: “How can you conduct a test run on a new railway line without a track inspection? How long had the vehicle been on the track before the test run? If I were President, I’ll be asking some serious questions.” In a quid-pro-quo, Richard Ahiagbah rebuts: “H.E. Mahama failed to ask any serious question when his Jubilee House staff designated President Uhuru Kenyatta as President of the Republic of Kenya instead of himself. The derailment of the DMU train has many unanswered questions, and serious questions are being asked to ensure the saboteurs are fished out.” Sure, that is the way.
Minister for Railways Development and Member of Parliament for Hohoe Constituency, Hon. John Peter Amewu, shows his disagreement with John Mahama: “I totally disagree with his Excellency, John Dramani Mahama. I don’t blame him. This is not his field. These guys who did this test run are experts. There are 16 engineers who were brought from Poland. This is the 304th test they’ve conducted worldwide this year, I was told. And so I don’t know where his Excellency John Mahama is coming from with his understanding that no inspection had been done.” Okay, we’re listening, Honourable Minister.
So, theories, speculations, religious beliefs, political innuendos take centre-stage, sans critical objective analysis.
We acknowledge the right of every individual to hold on to his beliefs, opinions and attitudes. In some cultures, the number 13 is thought to be an unlucky number. Superstition you would say. But in the United States of America Apollo 13 could not get the crew of John Young, Charles Duke and John Swigart to land on the moon. It was a fiasco, and investigation made NASA improve upon subsequent spacecrafts. Need we be told to investigate matters carefully before pointing accusing fingers? These attributions…. Oh, Ghana.
What lessons do we as ‘managers’ learn from the rail accident? Objectivity, for goodness’ sake, let no one wear political lenses.
africanusoa@gmail.com
By Africanus Owusu-Ansah