Broken-down ‘aboboyaa’ may have caused deadly Ofankor crash – NRSA

A broken-down tricycle, popularly known as an ‘aboboyaa’, may have set off the chain of events that resulted in the deadly multiple-vehicle crash at Ofankor Barrier on the Accra-Nsawam Highway, the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has disclosed.

Felix Owusu, Senior Planning Manager at the NRSA, said preliminary information gathered from the scene suggested that the stationary tricycle could have been the first factor in the crash, which has so far claimed 12 lives.

Speaking on Eyewitness News on Thursday, August 13, 2026, Mr Owusu said a tipper truck loaded with sand stopped behind the broken-down tricycle, followed by two passenger-carrying Sprinter buses.

He explained that another tipper truck subsequently approached the stationary vehicles at high speed and crashed into the queue, triggering a series of collisions.

“From the little we have gathered, there was a stationary tricycle, or what most people call an 'aboboyaa'. There was a tricycle which had broken down. So I'm sure because of the speed and then also because this is the curve, the distance from where the incident occurred to the curve is not that much. So I'm sure there was nothing he could do. So he just smashed into the last two vehicles in between the two tipper trucks,” he said.

The impact resulted in further collisions involving the other vehicles, leaving several people dead and injured.

The crash occurred at about 4 a.m. between the Ofankor Barrier and the John Teye enclave and involved seven vehicles — two tipper trucks, two Sprinter buses, two saloon cars and a tricycle.

The death toll has since climbed to 12, while 22 others are receiving treatment at various health facilities.

Mr Owusu, however, cautioned against treating the preliminary account as the confirmed cause of the accident, stressing that the NRSA was awaiting a comprehensive police report.

“As I said from the beginning, all that we are hearing are accounts given by bystanders, and so we don't want to rely solely on that,” he said.

He explained that investigators would have to obtain statements from surviving drivers and passengers to establish the sequence of events and determine what caused the crash.

“We are waiting for the police for a full report that will tell us what exactly happened and how each of the subsequent accidents or crashes occurred,” he added.