Former President John Mahama has pledged to reverse the new names assigned to public universities in the country by President Akufo-Addo.
According to the former President, he will take such actions if he secures reelection in the 2024 general election.
The promise by National Democratic Congress flag bearer comes on the back of President Akufo-Addo renaming several public universities after past heroes of the New Patriotic Party.
One typical example is the University for Development Studies (UDS), Wa campus, was renamed after SD Dombo (Simon Diedong Dombo), a politician from the United Party tradition.
The institution is now known as Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in the Upper West Region and C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS) in the Upper East Region.
However, addressing students at Zuarungu in the Upper East Region as part of his Building Ghana tour of the Upper East region, Mr. Mahama stated naming hostels and libraries will be accepted but not a whole university should be renamed.
“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. We can name an administration block, we can name a hostel, and we can name a library after somebody. But the university must reflect its core mandate,” Mr. Mahama stated.
He continued: “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.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
