Dorm Edem Prince Charles has a scratchy throat most evenings after work. Known amongst his fellow commercial bike riders as “Atentenben”, the Twi name for the flute that he loves to play, he coughs regularly while on the road.
On long shifts in heavy traffic, Atentenben gets dizzy, a feeling he attributes partly to riding too long, partly to the fumes he moves through all day. He has learned to stay hydrated. A doctor told him the face shield with the visor down would stop the reddish irritation in his eyes. The rest of the problems he accepts as part of the job.
“As for a dry, scratchy throat,” he says. “That one is normal.”
What Atentenben doesn’t know is that these symptoms are not normal. They’re early signs of serious illness, doctors say, that may become life-threatening, and end his flute playing, if he does not stop this job. Motorbikes and tricycles in urban traffic sit directly in the exhaust stream of the vehicles ahead of them. When they stop, which in Accra’s traffic is constant, the fumes thicken. That long exposure to highly concentrated levels of air pollution makes this one of the most deadly jobs in Ghana.
Now, a government bill legalising commercial motorcycle taxis may put many more bikes on the road. The bikes known as “Okados” in West Africa, after a now-defunct Nigerian airline known for its speed, emit the most toxic pollutants, but warns environmentalist Dr George Lartey-Young, monitoring and regulation are weak, “leaving dire health consequences in cities.”
In a move designed to support youth employment and regulate the previously illegal Okada trade, President Mahama signed the Road Traffic Amendment Bill into law in December. There are a few more hurdles to clear until it is implemented. When it is, more than one million motorcycle and tricycle operators will be formally permitted to operate as commercial passenger transport for the first time.
It is not clear how many new bikes will hit the road. For more than a decade, commercial passenger transport on commercial motorcycles had been illegal. But the ban was never truly enforced. Okada operators worked informally, in plain sight, across every city in the country.
According to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, an average of 10,000 new motorcycles and tricycles have been registered annually in each region over the past decade.
The health toll on riders is well-documented: persistent dry cough, dizziness in traffic, a throat that never quite clears. A study in Cameroon found respiratory disorders — including chest discomfort, runny nose and breathlessness — were significantly more common among riders than non-riders, while separate research among motorcycle taxi drivers in Benin found that around 23 per cent reported difficulty breathing, with carbon monoxide exposure reaching concentrations far above national air quality limits during morning and afternoon peak hours.
“Riders with the highest carbon monoxide exposure recorded noticeably lower lung function scores, especially in peak expiratory flow, which tells us how well air moves out of the lungs,” said Dr Divine Aseye Yao Amenuke, head of the respiratory unit at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
Air pollution killed 32,500 people prematurely in 2023 according to the State of the Air Report, a global snapshot of air pollution, and was a major contributor to growing rates of chronic diseases, including diabetes, stroke, hypertension, heart and lung diseases, infertility and cancer.
It’s not just bike riders.
Research among street traders working along busy traffic routes in Accra found consistent evidence that exposure to PM2.5 – the smallest and most dangerous particles of air pollution – from road traffic increases the occurrence of respiratory and cardiovascular symptoms. Stationary, surrounded by idling engines for eight to ten hours a day, traders are among the most chronically exposed people in the city.
At the central market in Dome Pillar 2, also in Accra, Araba Turkson sells clothes from a roadside stall in one of Accra’s most congested junctions. From her stall, Turkson watches rickshaw vehicles, known in Ghana as “pragya”, swarm through the intersection from morning to evening, their small two-stroke engines screaming at high revs, trailing visible exhaust as they queue to load passengers.
By midday, her throat is raw. Turkson keeps a water bottle close and drinks constantly just to keep talking to customers. On the worst afternoons, when Pragya queues three and four deep, the air at her stall thickens visibly.
Turkson has started draping cloth over her goods each evening, not against dust, but against the film of soot that settles on fabric left out too long. She has not seen a doctor about it.
“What will I tell them? That I sell at Pillar 2?” she asked in Twi.
Experts say Ghana has policies and mechanisms to measure and protect people in general from air pollution. It is not protecting these people on the front line.
“The real concern is that our air quality standards are built to protect the general public—not people who spend eight to ten hours a day outdoors, in traffic, breathing exhaust,” Dr Amenuke warned.
These people are usually some of Ghana’s poorest, with the least access to quality healthcare and fewer options to protect themselves.
Atentenben is a graduate student at the University of Professional Studies and funds his education entirely from his earnings as a motorcycle delivery rider and okada rider, earning GH₵300 on a quiet day, and GH₵1,460 on his best.
He entered the job with a motorcycle he already owned, a background in Uber driving during his undergraduate years, and a plan: ride until something better comes along.
What he did not plan for was what the job was slowly doing to his body. When told that two-stroke motorcycle engines emit more toxic substances per kilometre than car engines, his response is unguarded: “It’s new to my hearing.”
Lack of awareness is a major problem. Experts say people could do things to protect themselves if they knew, but the government has not invested in education campaigns.
At a minimum, citizens should be guided through campaigns to use protective gear, reduce outdoor activity in peak pollution, maintain hydration, and get routine health evaluations, because catching issues early improves recovery and survival,” said Dr Amenuke.
Accra’s traffic-choked streets are at the top of the list of air pollution hot spots
The health stakes are particularly high in Accra, because the city’s baseline air quality is already severely compromised. A review of studies between 2005 and 2022 found that PM2.5 concentrations at traffic hotspots in Accra were 12 times above what the World Health Organisation considered safe levels. Separate data showed that 75 per cent of roadside air samples in Accra exceed the national 24-hour limit.
The engine at the centre of it
Experts say the real problem is that Ghana’s motorcycle fleet uses a particularly problematic engine. Most okada motorcycles and the three-wheeled pragya run on two-stroke petrol engines. They are cheap, simple to maintain, and among the most polluting vehicles on any road.
Environmentalist Dr George Lartey-Young estimates that particulate matter emissions from two-stroke motorcycles can be up to three hundred times higher per kilometre than those of a modern car. Emissions of poisonous nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons are also significantly worse.
A graphical image of the two-stroke engine
For Atentenben, this is not an abstract data point. It is the dizziness he feels on long shifts; the throat he clears before speaking. And the long-term damage he is doing to his body that doctors say will likely plague him later on and cost the government money in health care costs.
Electric vehicles offer a solution, but many obstacles exist
The answer, according to many experts, is electric engines. The government has also acknowledged that as part of its effort to meet global climate change commitments.
In his State of the Nation Address in February 2025, President Mahama pledged a government-backed electric motorcycle hire-purchase scheme. It has yet to be implemented. Among the many obstacles is the need for a massive investment in charging stations that will allow the vehicles to move across the country and charge the battery as needed.
Experts and entrepreneurs now hope the bill will give new energy to the idea.
“Formal recognition of the commercial motorcycle sector gives policymakers the leverage to guide it toward cleaner, safer and more efficient technologies,” says Seth Owusu-Mante, founder and executive director of the Ghana Chamber of Clean Energy, an industry group. “We need government, regulators, transport unions and development partners to move quickly and support the deployment of electric motorcycles.”
The evidence from elsewhere on the continent supports Owusu-Mante’s case. In Rwanda, electric motorbikes produce fewer emissions than their petrol counterparts and are cheaper to operate, with riders saving hundreds of dollars annually in fuel costs.
Gas-fuelled motorcycles contribute 75 per cent of particulate matter air pollution in Rwanda — making the shift to electric not just a climate policy but a direct public health intervention.
Joy News sought a response from the Ministry of Transport on when electric motorcycles are expected to be introduced, but the ministry did not respond before the deadline.
Though he has not been exposed to any education campaign, Atentenben understands all of this, in his own way. He would recommend an electric motorcycle to every rider he knows. He knows the economics of electricity are better. But also knows this job is not his destination.
“Most of us doing this job, if you are doing it for life, it’s not something we see as a long-term occupation. If we get better opportunities, we exit the street.”
But experts say the damage he is doing to his body now may not end when he leaves the business. Without adequate information or government protection, Atentenben is one of thousands of Ghanaians unaware of the long-term health impacts his choices may have.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Clean Air Reporting Project.
Funding was provided by the Clean Air Fund. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com
