Naagyei 90.3 Fm Agyapa
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, has entreated lecturers of the university to accord students respect following the recent riot that ensued at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
Addressing a gathering at the official launch of 4th College of Humanities International Research Conference, the Vice Chancellor said both the Asantehene who’s the Chancellor of KNUST and all persons who toured the KNUST campus Wednesday were shocked at the level of damage of properties and other facilities.
“Going to KNUST yesterday was a great lesson for me…to be honest we were shocked at the extent of damage. So we picked great lessons and one of them being the fact that those of us in management and those of us teaching the students should try and look for innovative ways of engaging these students.
“If you are a lecturer and you are teaching these students in the classroom, or in the laboratory, courtesy demands that you must show enormous respect to the students…we do not want what happened at KNUST to happen here at the University of Ghana…I will not sit for things to escalate.”
Prof. Owusu, nonetheless asked students to use the laid down channels to have their grievances resolved and not to resort to violence.
“For you the students, the advice is that you use all possible means, all the internal mechanisms to address your grievances, you have no business going violent and destroying properties. Immediately we get the hint, I get the intelligence report that you are going, the university will be closed before you start your demonstration.
“…Don’t expect us to provide 100% of your expectations,… extremely difficult even your parents cannot. If you watched the KNUST Students filing out of campus some filed out of campus in Mercedes Benz, others V8, others with Ghana must go bags and they were looking for trotro (Commercial vehicle), unfortunately some even had to borrow money to pick trotro,” Prof. Oduro Owusu said.
The comments by the VC of the University of Legon comes days after students at the KNUST went on rampage and destroyed properties in excess of GHC1.6 million.
The students were protesting what they described as brutalities meted out to them by campus security and a lack of respect by the universities authorities.
