On Sunday 19 July 2026, Spain won the FIFA 2026 World Cup beating defending champions Argentina by 1-0. In the semi-finals, Argentina beat England 2-1 while Spain beat France 2-0.
Forty years ago at the FIFA 1986 World Cup in Mexico, a new phrase entered football lexicon. Many young Ghanaian football lovers may not have heard of the Argentine legend Diego Maradona’s “hand-of-God!”
“Hand-of-God” became the name Maradona called his controversial 51st minute opening goal in the 1986 FIFA quarter-finals against England. Maradona was said to have punched the ball with his left hand over England’s goalkeeper Peter Shilton’s head into the net.
Argentina eventually beat England 2-1 and went on to win FIFA 1986 cup.
Like many Ghanaians, I went to bed on Wednesday night 15 July 2026 happy with myself! Why? I felt a sense of natural justice at work! The architect of the insulting/condescending remark borne out of arrogance/disrespect, “people-from-those-countries” after Ghana had held his country England to a goal-less draw in the first round of World Cup 2026, had successfully led England to a 1-2 defeat to Argentina in the semi-finals. Interestingly, England played the same defensive football against Argentina their captain accused Ghana of playing against them.
My response to the insult was my article in June 2026, “After Bias refereeing/VAR Blindness, Ghana beat England by 0-0.”
However, before I could fully savour the joy of seeing the insulting/disrespectful captain of England beaten at the semi-finals of the FIFA 2026 World Cup by Argentina, another RTA happened in Ghana on the now notorious Kumasi-Accra Highway. On Thursday morning 16 Jul 26, a news item on radio with the heading “12 feared dead and 44 injured” at Odumase, near Konongo jolted me! Again? I asked myself.
Indeed, the news added that soon after the Konongo-Odumase three-vehicle-crash involving an overtaking DAF-truck carrying tomatoes, an Accra-bound passenger-vehicle and an empty fuel-tanker, another accident occurred at nearby Dadieso.
RTAs
In my recent May 2026 article titled “RTAs – Carnage Carnage, Carnage,” I started as quoted.
QUOTE
On Tuesday April 28 2026, the University of Cape Coast (UCC) community, as well as many Ghanaians were thrown into a state of mourning by the tragic death of UCC lecturer Dr Kwabena Agyemang and his Teaching Assistant Peter Asmah in a road-traffic-accident (RTA) in Cape Coast.
The next day on Wednesday Apr 29, 2026, seven people died when a commercial vehicle they were travelling in skidded off the steep Kwahu Mountains into the ravine. Beginning from 2017, in addition to the many articles others have written, I have written on RTAs needlessly claiming Ghanaian lives, in the following articles:
Mar 2017 : Motorway “Kamikaze driving?”
Feb 2020 : Vulcanizers and RTAs
Sept 2023 : Accra Tema-Motorway” An open trap?
May 2025 : Bad Roads, Reckless driving and RTAs
Aug 2025 : Accra-Kumasi Highway “Kamikaze driving?
Dec 2025 : RTA “epidemic?”
Therefore, perhaps writing again on RTAs might sound like the idiom, “playing a broken record!” But, it is absolutely necessary to remind policy-makers/people in authority, as well as drivers about this canker which in 2025, killed 2,949 Ghanaians in 14,743 crashes.
Seeing the way drivers speed recklessly in town, I have no doubt what they do on highways. Indeed, I experienced it in a recent trip to Cape Coast.
With this, I hoped that enough had been written on the dismal subject of RTAs. FIFA World Cup 2026 therefore easily provided a more interesting subject. The immediate result was my article “Despite Bias officiating/VAR Blindness, Ghana beat England by 0-0.” How wrong I was!
Below are excerpts from my 2017 article “Motorway kamikaze driving?
QUOTE
Accra-Tema Motorway
In a recent publication, Ghana’s death toll of over 1,700 casualties in the first nine months of 2016 was adjudged one of the highest in the world.
As a little boy living in Michel Camp with my parents in the early 1960s, I had the pleasure and privilege of being one of the early users of the newly constructed Accra-Tema Motorway, taking rides with my parents anytime they came to Accra. The 19-kilometer solid concrete road was modeled on the German autobahn and was intended by President Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah to be the first of many such motorways to link major cities in Ghana. It was simply an amazing construction and I loved being driven on it. There were telephone booths at regular intervals for emergencies and solid ground-reflectors for night driving.
Today however, in my retirement, even though it is the fastest way of getting to Accra from my home, I avoid the motorway like a plague.
Why? It has become a death-trap with accidents occurring frequently. People drive on it at top speeds like Jehu, overtaking every vehicle in sight, while crisscrossing/zigzagging to avoid potholes! Indeed, some drive like Japanese pilots on a Kamikaze mission!
Kamikaze
Towards the end of the World War 2 in 1945, Japan resorted to desperate measures as the end appeared to be in sight for them. She trained pilots in the Japanese Air Force for suicide missions of crashing their planes loaded with explosives on any Allied targets they saw, especially warships. They were the equivalent of today’s suicide bombers. Today, such is the fury and ferocity of driving on the Accra-Tema Motorway! Unfortunately, this dangerous driving appears to be only the tip of the iceberg of dangerous driving in Ghana.
As for the commercial motor-bike riders called “okada,” weaving through traffic dangerously without helmets, and going through red lights with impunity appears to be their stock-in-trade. What surprises me is that, policemen at traffic lights appear to have accepted such misbehavior by motor riders as normal.
Indiscipline
Many years ago, I took my driving test in a car with the Manual or Stick-shift gears. Before then, my driving instructor from the Automobile-Association (AA) told me/us that,” if you do not drive in the correct gears, the vehicle will drive you by stalling on you and stopping.” I was also taught Defensive Driving and Road Courtesy. Today, modern technology has replaced manual gear vehicles with automatic transmissions. This has reduced driving to speeding hard and then jamming on the brakes for an instant stop!
A common feature on our roads these days is a phenomenon I call “in-situ-repairs.” When a vehicle breaks down in the middle of the road, it is fixed there with total disregard for the resulting traffic jam, whereas moving it a few metres off the road would prevent any traffic build-up. At night, parked/broken-down vehicles in darkness become death-traps.
UNQUOTE
Discussion
Carnage from RTAs has become a daily phenomenon now with needless loss of lives. The loss of the UCC lecturer and his young TA Asmah is an unfortunate reminder to the various agencies for road safety to up their game. Apart from the 2,949 deaths in 2025, an even greater number were injured with some maimed for life.
Mr IGP, why are vehicles with DP and DV plates speeding about so confidently? It is only when the Police enforce road traffic laws rigorously that some Ghanaians will be forced to drive with care, and thus reduce the carnage on our roads. National Road Safety Authority, DVLA, Ghana Police and associated agencies, arise and save Ghanaian lives! Above all, drivers must drive with commonsense and not do the dangerous overtaking, one of which ended the lives of UCC lecturer Dr Agyemang and his Teaching Assistant Peter Asmah so tragically.
“12 killed and 44 injured” at Konongo-Odumase on 16 Jul 26 is the latest known statistics of deaths from RTA. Like “galamsey,” RTAs have not been given the desired seriousness they deserve. Enforcement by applying the appropriate sanctions like hefty fines and total ban for life is absolutely necessary.
For how long will officialdom continue with its cavalier response to RTAs as Ghanaians perish needlessly?
Leadership, lead by Example/Integrity/Humility! Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
The writer Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd) is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya and Council Chairman, Family Health University, Accra
