Motorcycle Rider Breaks Silence Over Bogoso-Apiate Deadly Explosion
I did not collide with truck, Motorcycle Rider Speaks
Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu Greater 
The rider of the motorcycle who was accused of causing the deadly truck explosion in Bogoso-Apiate in the Huni Valley District of the Western Region has finally broken the silence.
According to the distraught rider whose name was withheld now for security reasons, the accusing fingers pointed at him to the effect that he collided with the explosive-carrying truck was not true and fabricated.
The rider explained he was rather suddenly knocked by another vehicle from behind and rushed to a nearby health facility before the explosion occurred on Thursday, January 20, 2022.
"I am making clear for everyone to hear that is not true that l collide with the explosive track, neither was I at the scene during the explosion," the rider reaffirmed.
He pointed out that he is on admission receiving medical treatment at the health facility when he was informed that a truck had exploded.
“I don’t know where that story is coming from because I was not at the scene. I did not see any truck around me when the accident occurred. I was in the tricycle with one woman and the two of us were carried to the health facility," the rider sorrowful stated.
We were informed later by the people that conveyed us to the hospital later informed
that it was a sprinter bus that hit my tricycle and that the driver ran away after the accident,” he further explained.
Meanwhile, the preliminary investigations by the Police indicated that a mining explosive vehicle moving from Tarkwa to the Chirano Gold Mines collided with a motorcycle resulting in the explosion at Apiate, a farming community between Bogoso and Bawdie in the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality in the Western Region.
A team of investigators from the Criminal Investigative Department of the Ghana Police Service on Sunday, January 23, 2022, interrogated the truck driver and the rider of the motorcycle believed to be involved in the accident.
The team interrogated the two persons at the disaster site as part of measures to unravel the cause of the explosion.
The driver of the truck looked distraught with a part of his face bandaged.
The motor rider had his elbow and knee bandaged with bruises on his hand and chin.
The truck driver declined to engage the media after the interrogation, saying: “I have been instructed not to speak.”
The CID team said the interrogation would help them to unravel the circumstances that led to the accident and the subsequent explosion.
Fourteen people were killed and 179 others injured in the explosion, which occurred on Thursday, January 20, 2022.
The Minerals Commission of Ghana acted on the directive of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Saturday shut down Maxam Ghana Limited, owners of the explosive truck, to allow for the investigations into the deadly accident.
The Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia who led a Government delegation to the community on Friday, said Government would collaborate with the State Housing Corporation and mining companies to construct temporary housing facilities for those displaced in the explosion.
