Nana Addo’s favoring of NPP tradition in renaming of universities wrong – NDC MP
Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Peter Nortsu Kotoe has said the Akufo-Addo’s government’s decision of only favouring the legacy of the New Patriotic Party political lineage in the renaming of public universities is wrong.
The MP was referring to the decision by the Governing Council of the University of Energy and Natural Resources to rename the school after K. A. Busia.
The Akatsi North MP complained in a Citi News interview that “the president has taken delight in renaming our tertiary institutions and this is uncalled for.”
“We are naming the university after political figures who belong to one political family so how are you [President Nana Akufo-Addo] unifying the country naming the university after people of your own political inclination and that is not good for us.”
In the past year, the Wa Campus of the University of Development Studies (UDS) has been named after Simon D. Dombo and the Navorongo Campus has been named after C.K. Tedem; two persons who are known stalwarts of the NPP’s Danquah-Busia-Dombo political tradition.
Mr. Nortsu Kotoe held that these schools did not need renaming.
He argued that it would have been apt rename the University of Energy and Natural Resources after late President John Atta Mills, who established the school.
The University of Energy and Natural Resources was established by an Act of Parliament on December 31, 2011.
“If you want to name the university after anybody then you should honor the one who established the university, not any other political figure.”
Ultimately, Mr. Nortsu Kotoe said the Minority in Parliament felt that the universities should be named “by where they have been established and the programmes that they are to perform.”
The Deputy Ranking Member on the Education Committee in Parliament, Dr. Clement Apaak earlier decried the lack of consultation in the renaming of the schools.
“The lack of consultation was an affront to education in Ghana and deprived the country of a peaceful consensus on the matter,” he said.