Samia Nkrumah, the daughter of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah has described as a misplaced priority the practice by the government to rename public institutions after former politicians.
“Politicians should rather focus on addressing pertinent challenges and problems facing the citizenry. If I were in government I will not rename institutions, I will make sure that I’m addressing challenges, problems and needs of the citizenry and God knows they are many,” she stressed.
Ms Nkrumah’s comment comes on the back of concerns raised by some Ghanaians over the recent renaming of the Wa Campus of the University of Development Studies by the government after S.D Dombo, the Navrongo Campus after C.K Tedam and the University of Energy and Natural Resources after Dr K. A Busia, Prime Minister of the government of the 2nd Republic, all stalwarts of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo political tradition.
The government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Majority in Parliament used their numbers to win the vote to have the names of the three institutions changed, as the Minority protested that the name change has been brought in through the ‘back door’,
the Minority also decried a lack of consultations on the matter but the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh justified the name change.
He maintained that “when you talk about stakeholders, the University Council approved, it is the University Council that nominates and names institutions’,” and also reminded that previous name changes had been done without consultation.
“For the Thomas Sankara Interchange, what was the consultation that was done for that? What consultation was done before the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi was named after Dr Kwame Nkrumah?” Dr Prempeh queried.
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