Former senior governance advisor at the United Nations, Prof Baffour Agyeman Duah has described the outcome of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) impasse as a victory for good governance.
Mr Agyemang-Duah commended stakeholders of the university, especially the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), for the remarkable role they played.
“I appreciate the fact that UTAG in all ways did very well by sticking to its principles by insisting on its right to nominate their own reps for the council,” he said in an interview on Starr FM.
Mr Baffour also noted that the action of the chancellor, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to institute an independent body to investigate the cause of the impasse was not anything unusual.
“Now that a new council has been installed by the chancellor, he has every right to institute an independent body to investigate the root and immediate causes that led to the demonstration and the subsequent chaos we all witnessed,” he noted.
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On Monday, October 22, 2018, KNUST students demonstrated against alleged inhumane treatment by the university authorities.
The demonstration turned violent with students destroying properties on the campus.
In the light of the violence, the Government intervened by closing down the University, dissolving the University Council and in its place, setting up an Interim Governing Council.
These steps by the government have been criticised heavily by some commentators and interest groups as an infringement on the independence of higher institutions of learning in Ghana.
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On Monday, October 29, 2018, Government requested the Chancellor of the University, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to lead the next steps in reconstituting the University Council in accordance with the University’s statute and relevant laws.