The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) senior lecturers who openly declared support for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) ahead of the 2016 election have called the bluff of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG).
[contextly_sidebar id=”aRm5jQAQ6MQYq9Ua7RDS092wfnoajzGi”]The lecturers calling themselves NPP Frontliners say UTAG has no moral right to condemn their move saying, it smacks of “hypocrisy.”
UTAG has condemned the move by the University lecturers and has further dissociated itself from the group.
But the spokesperson for the group, Dr. Kwabena Boadu told Citi News, UTAG’s position on the matter is “very unfortunate” because “UTAG has no right to tell who belongs to what.”
According to him, the members of the NPP Frontliners are well aware of the negative implications of drawing UTAG into their political activities, hence their decision to act outside the confines of the association.
But Dr. Boadu questioned why some members of UTAG, were allowed to hold political positions while still practicing the profession.
He mentioned Joshua Alabi and Richard Quarshigah saying, “Joshua Alabi was the former Greater Accra Regional Minister and Quarshigah is the immediate Propaganda Secretary of the NDC so what is he [UTAG General Secretary] trying to tell us? That they are different human beings?”
“They are shaken to the bone and that is why they are doing that,” he retorted.
Meanwhile, authorities at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology say the NPP Frontliners is not registered at the school.
In an interview with Citi News, a Deputy Registrar at the University, Vincent Ankamah-Lomotey stressed that the school authorities will only allow such a group to associate itself with the school if it follows the regulations put in place to guide their operations.
“We will have to set conditions before it can be registered in the name of the university. We don’t bar any individual from declaring his or her political stance,” he said.
Ankamah-Lomotey explained that “if a student has a complaint and because of the lecturer’s political affiliation, he or she is being victimized in a way, then the student can raise the issue and the university authorities will take it as such but if the person just declared his political stance and is doing his or her professional work professionally, then there is nothing wrong with that.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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