It was at the busy crossing at Madina Zongo junction when the unexpected happened. Part of the heavy vehicular traffic facing Adenta from Accra central had after a wait behind traffic lighting, got their chance to escape to the other side pointing to Adenta, Aburi and other places.
The night was one of the busiest and this was evident at the intersection transitional zone. Chaotic scenes with pedestrians and some commercial vehicles forcing their way from slip roads into main traffic, illegally. Two or three policemen could be spotted in the thick of affairs, but obviously overwhelmed by the task.
Suddenly, the traffic ahead of us screeched to a halt and the ones behind started horning when urged on by the green light in the traffic light signals. It was very dark so it was not that easy to detect the fault lines in the confusion.
We got a sense of what might have held up traffic, when a cow surfaced and was menacingly meandering through the spaces available in the congestion. The cow seemed to have strayed and lost its way from the herd, thus it looked agitated in the melee.
Frightened hawkers who took a dive to avoid the feral animal, threw away their items. One of them had earlier collided with the animal and fell on the road. This was only the tip of the iceberg, for as we discovered seconds later, it was a whole cattle herd making a crossing in one of Accra’s busiest centres.
Not knowing which direction to take in the thick of affairs, the animals scattered in the streets with the herdsman having a tough time controlling his flock.
The rules are that, if you are herding animals along or across the road and there is someone with you, send him along the road to warn drivers at places such as bends and brows of hills where they may not be able to see. Herders are cautioned to carry lights after sunset. If one is herding animals after sunset you must carry a red light visible along the road in both directions.
These were obviously flouted, more so when it was even outlandish for the animals to surface in the human league. Where did the cattle pasture before making the sudden presence in a place, not their habitat?
This raises questions about stray animals in the city of Accra, a clear aberration in scheme of things for a city that prides itself to be modernizing. The faux pas that occured at Madina is a trumpet in the ears of city authorities, to turn attention to the comedy but certainly unacceptable phenomena in which animals left on the loose are found loitering and jostling for space with humans.
Oh no !!!
