The General Overseer of International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) has described recent road accidents on the Kintampo and Cape Coast roads that claimed about 90 lives as a ‘senseless’ development.
Speaking at the Christ Temple on Sunday, Pastor Mensa Otabil called for immediate pragmatic action to curb the menace.
“It is gruesome for
our nation to lose these number of people in one accident, it is just
unbelievable…there is no need for anybody to die on the road…we need to do something dramatic because human lives are very important and certain things don’t make sense,” he said.
He wonders why travelling in a small country like Ghana be such a big risk with people always praying for travelling mercies.
The man of God says families and loved ones are always sitting on tenterhooks once a relation or a friend is travelling.
“Much of our prayers are
for journey mercies when you hear that somebody you know is travelling
you pray and intercede from the time they leave to the time they arrive.
Then when they arrive and they call to say so, you are very happy.
Another intercession begins when they say I am returning.
“I am not saying we should
not pray for people to have safe journey but safe journey shouldn’t
become a major prayer topic…there are other things you should pray
for, for souls to be saved but not for safe journey,” he said.
About 90 people were confirmed dead in two separate road crashes in the Bono East and Central Regions on Friday.
Police have confirmed 55 died in the gory head-on collision between
two passenger buses on the Kintampo-Techiman road. Fifty-three others
are seriously injured and 35 of the deceased could not be identified.
Hours after the first accident, 30 people also died in another fatal
accident which occurred at Ekumfi Abor on the Winneba-Cape Coast Highway
in the Ekumfi District of the Central Region.
Commenting on the unfortunate incidents, the man of God commiserated
with the bereaved families and said he wondered where the country was
headed.
“For all you know, they could have been a whole family that is wiped
out because sometimes families travel together…Father, mother children
could all be wiped out instantly for no sensible purpose or reason than
they were in a vehicle and it just crashed. It is not good,” he
lamented.
Equally worried about the development is the founder and president of the World Miracle Outreach Rev. Dr Lawrence Tetteh, who has attributed the recent carnage on our roads to reckless driving and indiscipline.
Founder and president of the World Miracle Outreach Rev. Dr Lawrence Tetteh
According to him, a lot of
the drivers have no knowledge about the traffic regulations, road signs
or have not gone through the needed training.
He added that many drivers also fail to check their health while others get intoxicated but still sit behind the wheel.
“If you look at most of the
road accidents that we have suffered, it is because people are
reckless, they take the law into their hands,” he stated.
Rev. Lawrence Tetteh
believes regulating some of the drivers could reduce accidents in the
country drastically as they are preventable but for the recklessness of
some people.
“We have a collective
responsibility. What is bad is bad so, if you see a drunkard when you
sit in a trotro or a bus take the wheel, call the police and let them
breathalyze him, it will save your life, it will save my life,” he said.
The Pastor called on the nation to wake up and put a check on some of the careless driving habits on the roads.
Rev. Dr. Lawrence Tetteh discouraged people from putting the blame of many of these unfortunate accidents on the devil.
He said the notion of
attributing things to the spirit sometimes is not fair, as “people’s
foolishness is being attributed to the devil.”