Tension as students face-off with police at Commonwealth Hall

Students of the University of Ghana on Tuesday engaged some heavily armed police officers at the entrance of the Commonwealth Hall.

The security personnel at the forecourt of the Commonwealth Hall prevented aggrieved former occupants as they tried to make entry into the hall.

After stiff resistance from the police, the students claimed they have secured an interlocutory injunction to reside in the hall.

The latest stand-off comes on the back of the university management’s new residential policy indicating that continuing students are supposed to occupy other halls apart from the Commonwealth and Mensah Sarbah halls to make way for level 100 and graduate students.

In an interview with Citi News, a member of the Academic Communication Team of the university, Professor Ransford Gyampo described the attitude of the students as lawless and urged them to use the appropriate channels to meet their grievances since the matter is still in court.

“It is this kind of lawlessness that vindicates the position that position the university has taken. There is a ban on processions on campus…some groups feel they don’t like the decision that the University has taken, so they have taken the university to court.

“Before the substance of the matter is heard, they ask for an injunction. Merely asking for an injunction or even if a court grants an injunction, does not preclude those who have been injuncted from asking for a stay of execution and appealing against the decision. So it is lawless for someone to say that the court has granted an injuncted, so we are going to enforce the injunction ourselves.”