I was thrilled to learn that the Ghana Armed Forces completed the mapping of the 197-kilometer pathway for the proposed Accra-Kumasi Expressway.
Growing up around military environments gave me an early opportunity to observe something about the Ghana Armed Forces that has remained with me for many years: the military is not only about guns, slaps, parades, and the defense of our territorial integrity.
As a student at Central International School, my uncle, Kofi Yeboah, lived at the Boys Quarters at Uaddara Barracks, home of the 4th Battalion of Infantry in Kumasi. Later, through visits to my sister’s husband at the 3rd Battalion of Infantry in Sunyani, I encountered different aspects of military life.
One area of the military fascinated me: the 48 Engineer Regiment, which handled engineering and construction.
At the barracks, I learned that soldiers did not only defend the country; some built and repaired bridges, worked on roads, and undertook other construction assignments. I remember seeing photographs of military personnel carrying huge logs of timber and repairing broken bridges.
Those images have stayed with me.
Years later, that childhood fascination would influence my thinking about one of Ghana’s most persistent problems: the indiscipline associated with the management and use of our roads.
I have previously stated on radio that Ghana should seriously consider giving the military a greater supervisory and engineering role in protecting our major roads and highways. The first time I raised that on radio, I got an unpleasant query from retired workers of the Ghana Highways Authority.
My argument is not that soldiers should replace civilian institutions responsible for roads. Neither am I advocating the militarisation of civilian administration.
Rather, I believe we must ask a simple question: Can the discipline, engineering expertise and organisational culture of the Ghana Armed Forces be strategically deployed to help protect our national road infrastructure?
One of my biggest concerns is the uncontrolled construction of speed ramps.
How did we arrive at a point where virtually every community along some major roads appears capable of constructing its own speed ramp?
In the original account that inspired this article, I recalled counting more than 21 speed ramps on a stretch between Adugyama and Bechem Nkwanta on the Kumasi-Sunyani road.
A highway is supposed to facilitate the relatively efficient movement of people, goods and services between destinations. Yet, on some routes, motorists accelerate for a short distance only to encounter another ramp, then another, and another.
Some ramps may be justified on safety grounds, particularly around schools, busy settlements, markets and pedestrian crossing points. The problem is not the legitimate use of properly engineered traffic-calming measures, but that some towns have turned the highway into a market.
Road safety cannot mean that every community should have the freedom to alter a national highway whenever residents believe motorists are driving too fast.
If speeding is the problem, then speeding must be addressed professionally because a national highway cannot become a collection of locally improvised solutions.
I was therefore excited about the military’s involvement in clearing the path for the Accra-Kumasi express road project.
The excitement was personal. For me, the significance goes beyond one road project.
It raises a bigger national question.
Are we fully utilising the engineering and organisational capacity of the Ghana Armed Forces in our national development?
Sometimes, defending a nation is not only about protecting its borders. It is also about building and protecting the roads that hold the nation together.
