The 2020 Parliamentary Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Oforikrom Constituency, Henry Osei Akoto, has described Former President John Dramani Mahama’s plan to revert the names assigned by President Akufo-Addo to certain public universities in the country when he wins power as being in the right direction.
Addressing party supporters, chiefs, and students in Zuarungu in the Upper East Region, Mahama criticized the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) for renaming universities established by the NDC government after their own political heroes.
Mahama queried the notion behind the renaming of existing universities when the NPP had not established even a single university in the country.
The former candidate for the NDC National organizer position said the country’s properties are not for the NPP, and that the president can equally build more infrastructures in the universities and name them after his party figures.
According to him, Akufo-Addo wanted to rename UDS after JJ Rawlings as a token of justification, but this decision was rejected by Rawlings when he was alive.
He said Akufo-Addo renamed the following universities after NPP stalwarts and Ephraim Amu, even though none was constructed by him or his party.
The Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) was renamed 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. Additionally, in 2018, the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) was renamed George Grant University of Mines and Technology.
He indicated that John Mahama is nicknamed the nation builder because of the number of schools, roads, factories, and hospitals he constructed.
He further stated that the next NDC government will return the universities to their original names because the country has many notable heroes, and not only heroes align to the NPP tradition.
By Lawrence Odoom