Former President John Dramani Mahama has said the suspension of the headmaster of the Tempane Senior High School (SHS) in the Upper East region, Dominic Ndegu Amolale, shows how intolerant the NPP government is.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) suspended the headmaster last Saturday after a video went viral of an aspiring National Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Joshua Akamba, allegedly inciting some students of the Tempane SHS against President Akufo-Addo over the challenges facing the implementation of the free Senior High School programme.
Ndegu Amolale was instructed in a letter to handover the management of the school to the Upper East Regional GES Director to allow for investigations into the incident.
But addressing a large crowd of delegates and supporters of the main opposition National Democratic Congress at the Wa campus of the university for development studies(UDS), former president Mahama described as unwarranted, the circumstances that led to the suspension of the headmaster.
He indicated that the governing NPP lacks the moral right to react in this manner because they openly campaigned in various Senior High schools in the run up to the 2016 general elections that brought them to power.
“Who went into schools more than somebody? We were in government and there was somebody he was always in the schools and playing politics and yet we never sacked any headmaster, we never sacked any teacher because you have gone into a school. Then one of our aspirants for a certain position goes to a school and the students show him how bedbugs have chewed them and had a discourse with them. Then you suspend the headmaster and you say he should handover and you are investigating him. Investigating him for what?”
“The schools have children who are 18 years and above and they vote. And in our time in office we allowed the opposition to go into the schools. That is the problem with NPP, they are highly intolerant. Things that we took for granted they won’t take for granted. And so the poor headmaster has been suspended. And I hope the investigation exonerates him. And the investigators should know that when they were in opposition they did the same thing,” he added.
Mahama used the opportunity to urge Ghanaians to bring back the NDC to alleviate the country from its current economic hardship.
Although GES rules clearly prohibits political activities in schools except at the tertiary level, both parties often flout the rules.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey & Latiff Mahama/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
