John Dramani Mahama, the leader of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has sworn that if he wins reelection as president in the 2024 elections, he will change the names that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gave certain public universities in the nation.
Upon taking office, the president renamed a few public universities. One such example is the University for Development Studies (UDS), Wa campus, which bears the name of SD Dombo [Simon Diedong Dombo], a United Party politician.
These days, the university is known as the C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS) in the Upper East Region and the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in the Upper West Territory.
The University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) was renamed the George Grant University of Mines and Technology by President Akufo-Addo in 2018.
At Zuarungu in the Upper East Region, the NDC flagbearer addressed party members, chiefs, and students. He took aim at the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government for renaming universities that the NDC government had built after their heroes.
He questioned why the country’s universities kept changing names under the NPP administration, which hasn’t constructed any new ones.
Mr. Mahama insisted that the names of public universities should reflect their fundamental mission and underlined the necessity of renaming administration buildings, libraries, and hostels after specific individuals.
Because of the quantity of schools we have constructed, we are referred to as nation builders. All public universities were founded and developed by us. The NPP is limited to naming universities that have been established by individuals. NDC plans to name one of their heroes or people after one of their heroes has been built. We intend to rename the academic institutions. Not just the heroes of the NPP heritage exist in Ghana.
He underlined, “We can honor someone by naming a library, dorm, and administration building. However, the university needs to adhere to its main mission. Thus, the original names will be reinstated, and the names they gave them will be applied to important university infrastructure.
We also intend to include additional individuals and dedicate university infrastructure in their honor. That is the university’s primary mission, though, if it is the University for Development Studies. The University for Development Studies will be its name.
