Government is fighting back criticisms that it poorly handled the impasse at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
The government in the wake of the violent riots at the University by students dissolved the governing council of the school, replacing it with an interim council, with a three months mandate to return the school to normalcy.
The Council was to be chaired by Nana Effah Apenteng, Paramount Chief of the Bompata Traditional Area.
The Vice-chancellor of the University was also asked to step aside.
It followed the indefinite closure of the university on October 22.
Following the massive rejection of the interim council by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) and other stakeholders, the government fell on the Chancellor of the University, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to reconstitute the dissolved governing council.
The School is also expected to re-open on November 8.
Speaking to Starr Today’s Atiewin Mbillah-Lawson, the Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah argued that the government was right to intervene.
“If the system had been allowed to work, I am sure the destruction that you saw at KNUST would have escalated that evening and probably the following day and nobody actually knows what would have happened and what else people would say if the government, the President, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces is standing by and starring when a nation is almost in anarchy, a particular spot in Ghana is in anarchy,” Professor Yankah observed.
When it was pointed out to him that the dissolution of the governing council by the government was unnecessary and a disregard to the Act and Statutes governing the University, Professor Yankah said government stepped in because it thought the inaction of the council amounted to “a dereliction of duty.”
“And that’s why government immediately entered,” he said, adding: “government thought the situation had gotten out of hand and was sourly disappointed about the inaction on the part of the council at that particular time and not to have taken earlier decisions that would have defused the situation on the ground.
“So the government had to come in and not just come in, but also say that we are disappointed in council so step for an interim body to be put in place that would hold off any further anarchy on campus until a new body is set up to take charge of affairs at KNUST.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
