The flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has vowed to reverse the names President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gave some public universities in the country if he is re-elected as president in the 2024 polls.
Some public universities were renamed by the President when he assumed office.
For instance, the University for Development Studies (UDS), Wa campus was named after SD Dombo [Simon Diedong Dombo], a politician from the United Party tradition.
The university is now Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in the Upper West Region and the C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS) in the Upper East Region.
President Akufo-Addo in 2018 also renamed the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) to the George Grant University of Mines and Technology.
Addressing party supporters, chiefs, and students at Zuarungu in the Upper East Region, the NDC flagbearer lashed out at the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government for renaming universities constructed by the NDC government after their heroes.
He wondered why the NPP government, which has not built any universities in the country, kept renaming the existing ones.
Mr. Mahama emphasized the need to rename libraries, hostels, and administration blocks after people, insisting that the names of public universities should reflect their core mandate.
“We are known as nation builders because of the number of schools we have built. Every public university was initiated and built by us. All the NPP knows how to do is name universities that people have built. After NDC builds a university, then they will give it the name of one of their heroes or people. We are going to rename the universities. Ghana has many heroes, and not only the heroes of the NPP tradition.
He emphasized, “We can name an administration block, hostel, and library after somebody. But the university must reflect its core mandate. And so we will restore the original names, and the names that they have given them will be given to significant infrastructure in the universities. And we will add other people and name the infrastructure in the universities after them. But if the university is the University for Development Studies, that is its core mandate. It will be called the University for Development Studies.”
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