By Robert Kyei-Gyau

Sunday, April 24 marked a very ignominious milestone for the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi.

The day marked the first anniversary of a tragic, but avoidable accident on the university’s campus, which claimed the life a young female student, Eva Agnes Adwoa Alodina.

Alodina, a Level 100 student died instantly when the roof of a walkway collapsed on her at the Independence Hall of Ghana’s foremost science and technology tertiary institution.

Her bosom friend, Gertrude Davis Kyere, with whom she was walking under the canopy at the time, however, survived the freak accident but sustained very serious injuries and had to spend several weeks on admission at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

The two were said to have been friends from the St. Louis Senior High School in Kumasi and had been inseparable.

But their dreams were cut short by an accident which should never have happened, if the KNUST authorities had a rigid maintenance schedule and had carried out routine maintenance of all structures on the campus, including the one that collapsed.

Regrettably, the silence on this anniversary was deafening. Nothing was heard of the unfortunate accident.

Nevertheless, the fact that the accident happened at all means that the university woefully failed to conform to all health and safety laws and exposed the victims to danger. Yet, for one full year after the accident, no one has been held into account for what happened to Alodina and Miss Kyere.

So, while other families enjoyed in the festivities and made merry on Easter Sunday, the same could not be said of the late Alodina’s family. For them, April 24 every year will never be the same again as every Easter will be a constant reminder of the incident that resulted in the death of their daughter, sister, cousin, niece, granddaughter and friend.

For Miss Kyere, who survived the accident, the day will always be marked with mixed feelings. It will obviously be a very difficult day for her, having survived the accident by the skin of her teeth while her best buddy, Alodina, could not make it.

For me, the accident, tragic as it was, was a very serious indictment on the reputation of KNUST as it exposed the institution’s lax maintenance culture. Simply put, the accident was needless; the death of Alodina and the injuries of Miss Kyere could have been averted, had the KNUST not been negligent and naive. It beats my imagination that the institution has not come out publicly to accept responsibility for the accident, apologised to or compensated the families of the late Alodina and Miss Kyere. I stand to be corrected.

To me, the KNUST is culpable of criminal negligence but till date nobody has been held into account for the accident. My limited legal knowledge portends that someone could be charged for criminal negligence. This is because it was someone’s job to maintain the structures periodically. In the same way, it was another person’s job to ensure that the maintenance had been carried out promptly. In both instances both failed to do their jobs, which led to the accident and the death of Alodina.

No matter how you look at it, the accident was also as a result of dereliction of duty. It is so because several people at the KNUST failed to do their jobs, for which they are paid by the Ghanaian taxpayer. And for that failure, somebody ought to have been held into account, like it happens in any serious society where people are held into account for their actions and inactions.

For instance, when a crazy person sneaks a gun into an American university, shoots and kills several people, such institutions accept responsibility and eventually compensates the families of the victims.

Not only that but the institution concerned, after carrying out extensive investigations, studies all the reports to learn lessons so that it will guide the institution and others to prevent a reoccurrence of the incident.

For the KNUST, the irony of the situation is that the findings of a commission of enquiry set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the accident have not been made public. It probably did not make interesting reading for the authorities. One worker at the university told me that the authorities had probably forgotten the tragedy before the first anniversary.

If I were relations of Alodina and Miss Kyere, I would have filed wrongful death and negligence lawsuits against the KNUST. There is no denying the fact that compensation will never bring Alodina back to life but it will definitely assuage the pain and loss of her family.

Ghanaians have a habit of cringing at the prospect of taking legal action to seek redress and often say, “let’s give it to God”, even when they have a good case.

The Judiciary and Police should also take some of the blame for turning a blind eye to the act of criminal negligence. The KNUST accident that resulted in the death of Alodina and injuries to her friend is a clear case of criminal negligence.

For all intents and purposes, the Police should have investigated the incident thoroughly and held the KNUST to account for what happened to the two girls. To my knowledge, heads did not roll at the KNUST, not even eyes blinked. For the KNUST authorities, the case was probably closed long ago and they are perhaps awaiting the next disaster.

It is common knowledge that several halls of residence, structures and buildings on the KNUST campus have not seen any major repairs since they were constructed several years ago. I have been to the KNUST library recently and saw roofs of several buildings in abject state, with painting peeling off and structures in dire need of repairs.

It is a shame some of the structures have not seen any repairs since the days of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and the fact that similar accidents have not happened could be attributed to divine providence and nothing else.

Nevertheless, the tragic circumstances of Alodina’s demise, sadly, epitomises the shameful attitude of Ghanaian institutions and authorities to the culture of maintenance.

The likes of the Department of Urban Roads, Feeder Roads, Ghana Highway Authority, the adage, “a stitch in time, saves nine”, has virtually lost meaning. In fact that adage has become a cliché while the culture of maintenance is so alien to them. No wonder many Ghanaians die on the roads everyday through avoidable accidents, due to the failure of institutions responsible for road maintenance to carry out their duties for which they are paid by the taxpayer.

As a result of their dereliction of duty, people are dying needlessly on the roads and these shameless people are the same ones to turn up on radio to lay the blame on drivers.

I do not in anyway, seek to denigrate the image and reputation of the KNUST but the accident has exposed the laxity in the maintenance culture of the institution and the haphazard manner in which it handled the accident.

The public need to know what changes have taken place and lessons learnt following the accident so that parents can be assured that their children will come back home in one piece.

No family has to go through what Alodina’s family has gone through again. END