Professor Baffour Agyemang-Duah, a former United Nations (UN) Adviser on Governance, has raised concerns over the rapidity with which the president is renaming national monuments.
According to him, “although it is appropriate to honour heroes of the nation, the current situation appears to be fraught with politics”.
Prof Agyemang-Duah’s comment comes after President Nana Akufo-Addo disclosed that the Sunyani-based University of Energy and Natural Resources is to be named after Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia, the Prime Minister of the Second Republic after the University’s Council proposed.
“Following the decision taken by the University’s Council on August 3, 2018, the university will be named after one of the illustrious sons of the region, Professor K.A Busia after the decision has received parliamentary approval,” the President indicated.
It came barely a month after a proposal for the renaming of the Navrongo campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) after C. K. Tedam, the immediate past Chairman of the Council of Elders of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who passed on recently, another founding member of the United Party tradition, the foundation of the NPP, Dr Paa Grant also has the University of Mines, Tarkwa named after him by the government.
Prof Agyemang-Duah intimated that “there should be an independent body who will undertake the exercise of renaming national monuments objectively since there is no independent commission making the pronouncements; it seems the approach is partisan and the president seems to be in a hurry in the renaming processes”. -starrfmonline.com
