Authorities of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), have refuted media speculations that the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kwasi Obiri-Danso, has resigned.
“Prof. Obiri-Danso is still at post. It is not true that he has handed in his resignation or been impressed upon by the University Council to resign,” Mr. Kwame Yeboah Junior, the University Relations Officer (URO), told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi.
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“The University has its own mandated processes for removing the Vice-Chancellor, but for now none of our clauses in relation to that effect has been activated”, he noted.
Mr Yeboah Junior indicated that following a stakeholders’ meeting on Tuesday, the University Council had been directed to as quickly as possible strive to resolve the differences for normalcy to return to the campus.
The meeting had in attendance, the Minister in-charge of National Security, Mr. Albert Kan-Dapaah, Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku-Prempeh, and Bantamahene, Baffour Asare Owusu, who represented the Asantehene and Chancellor of the University, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, as well as representatives of the University.
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KNUST had in recent time been embroiled in turmoil, following violent clashes between the student body and authorities over what the former described as unwarranted brutalities meted out to students.
The feud was heightened last Monday (October 22, 2018) when some of the aggrieved students took to the streets on the campus, protesting vehemently about the University’s alleged manhandling of some of their colleagues.
What was supposed to have been a peaceful demonstration turned violent when the aggrieved protestors mounted road blocks and decided to destroy everything in sight.
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They set fire on some of the University vehicles and security motorbikes, smashed windscreens, billboards and other property on the campus.
A combined team of the military and police had since been deployed to the University campus to restore calm.
When GNA got to the campus on Tuesday, the entire University had been deserted as the students vacated their halls of residence in compliance to a directive that they should all leave, pending investigations into the violent incident.