The minimum age for riding a motorcycle or to obtain a driver’s licence for a private vehicle in Ghana is 18 years.
That is what the Road Traffic Regulations, 2012 (L.I 2180) says.
But a businessman named Sulemana Dauda reportedly made a 15-year-old schoolboy, Maximilian Asakiwine Anyoka, break the traffic regulation on Monday, 17 June 2024, in Kassena-Nankana West, a district in the Upper East region.
And it resulted in a paralysis that has kept the boy away from school against his will for one year.
On that day, Dauda loaded some wooden planks into the bucket of a motorised tricycle, a common means of transport in the region widely referred to as motorking, from his building supply store at Polmogo-Sirigu. Then, he asked the boy to transport the items on the tricycle to a customer at Zorko, a next-door community.
When the boy got to the main bridge that links Polmogo-Sirigu and Zorkor, the tricycle suddenly lost balance and rolled over. It took some minutes before some other road users pulled him out from under the overturned tricycle and the planks.
Another road traffic regulation breach some witnesses confirmed is that Dauda did not provide the boy with a motorcycle helmet before he sent him on that journey.
Neglect
Maximilian’s father, Kojo, has not been well and his mother, Aguriya, is currently unemployed.
After the boy was rushed from the accident scene to a private hospital in the Bolgatanga East District, he was taken to a traditional bonesetter in the North East region.
From North East he was taken to the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) in the Northern region where it was established that the crash affected his spinal cord.
After he was discharged from that facility, his mother sought further medical attention for him at another hospital in the North East region when the boy suffered a severe malaria attack along with his paralysis condition.
While the boy was on admission in the Northern region, TTH doctors said it would cost Gh¢17,700 to correct the defect in his spinal cord so he could walk again and go back to school. The businessman made only Gh¢10,000 available to Aguriya for the boy’s surgery.
When asked by the author of this report on the telephone why he provided only Gh¢10,000 for the surgery, the businessman replied: “You call Gh¢10,000 only?”
The businessman paid a visit to the boy but the boy’s mother drove him away from their home.
Aguriya told this writer she did so out of anger for neglecting the boy after the motorking accident.
Dauda subsequently dwelt on the rejection he experienced at the boy’s home as an excuse for not paying any more visits to him.
Even after the author of this story appeased the boy’s mother on his behalf and urged him to visit the boy with an assurance that he would be well received, the businessman did not go there.
The visit I suggested to him was delayed by endless excuses.
He only delegated his wife, Hamdia, in May, this year, to visit the boy on his behalf and it took several weeks before he took that decision.
His wife has been there just twice between May and July, this year.
Relationship
Where the boy lives with his parents and the businessman’s house are not too far from each other.
Before the accident happened, Dauda’s wife used to sell food at the boy’s grandmother’s house and she always had the boy around to run errands for her.
When his mother left the region in search of any job in the southern cities, the boy joined Dauda’s family in their home basically because of his basic needs like food and footwear.
He was already attending the Mother of Mercy Junior High School in Pomolgo-Sirigu before he joined the Daudas.
After school hours and on weekends, he assisted Dauda at the store, transporting building materials for about two years on a tricycle to wherever they were needed.
On hearing rumours about the accident that afternoon, his mother raced to Hamdia’s family house to verify.
“They said they had taken him to a private hospital at Zuarungu but they did not want me to talk to him,” Aguriya told me through an interpreter in her native Gurune.
“I said they should show me the place so I could go there and see my son.”
She was with him alone while he was admitted and took him home after he was discharged from hospital.
Pains
As a result of the damage done to the spinal cord, there has been no communication from the boy’s brain to his bladder and bowel.
This communication disruption has further resulted in a temporary loss of his sensation and control over urination and excretion.
The boy, who should have been in JHS 2 at present, has been unknowingly urinating and defecating on himself. He cannot walk. He is either found in a prostrate position on the floor or sitting in a wheelchair, pushed around by his mother.
While the businessman appears to be more concerned about his own business— the business that brought the affliction upon the boy and has kept him away from school for one year so far— the jobless mother borrows money to buy diapers for her son, now 16 years of age, every day to retain urine and faeces.
And surprisingly, the school the boy attends (Mother of Mercy JHS) has not shown the boy the much-expected ‘mercy’ or compassion as nobody or delegation has visited him in the name of the school throughout the 12 months (1 year) he has missed lessons and examinations through no fault of his.
Apparently, the businessman has only been too busy with his own business. And he appears to be more concerned about his own gains than the boy’s pains.
Certainly, only the Gh¢17,700 surgery can restore the boy’s lost health and disrupted education.
And certainly, only a firm application of the rule of law can guarantee justice and adequate compensation for the agonies he has been through with his tearful mother.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
