Some scores of students at the University of Ghana have advised President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to focus on his job instead of renaming the institution after J.B. Danquah.
According to the students, there is the need for more infrastructural facilities at the University of Ghana that will expand their scope and help deal with any accommodation issues.
These institutions they say, can be named after J.B. Danquah to help solve the accommodation crisis the institution is grappling with.
In an interview with GhanaWeb TV on Tuesday, August 15, 2023, some of the students said;
“As a citizen, I would say this [renaming of UG] is the least of our worries. There are a lot of pertinent issues moving around our neck as a country like the economy that needs much more attention from his [Akufo-Addo] outfit. I think the best thing for him is to put up a structure, maybe a university in their homeland in the Eastern region and name it after J.B. Danquah. My message to the president is that the name; University of Ghana will remain today, tomorrow, and forever,” one student; Rashad told GhanaWeb TV.
“Personally I don’t think that it [renaming UG] is an ideal thing that we should be doing at this particular moment. The reason why I am saying this is that the name and the respect of this particular institution is in the name itself. The University of Ghana has been the University we’ve all known across the world because of the ‘Ghana’ that is attached to it.
"So I think the moment we remove 'Ghana' from there and add an individual’s name to it irrespective of the contribution that the person has done to the university or even the country as a whole, I think is going to reduce that kind of respect and the mileage that the University has,” another student, Collins, told Ghanaweb TV.
A female student raised concern about the monetary cost involved with regard to branding its equipment if President Akufo-Addo goes ahead to rename the University of Ghana after J.B. Danquah.
“Renaming a whole premier University after J.B. Danquah is going to cause a lot of impacts. As we all know, the university is thriving with its name, [University of Ghana] so changing it is going to cause a lot of loss to the university, especially with the branding of buses, logo, and everything which is going to bring a lot of cost to the University. So I don’t really buy the idea that the University’s name should be changed,” Elizabeth Ocansey said.
“What we need is not renaming but facilities that will help the University. Even a lot of the lecturers are complaining that their conditions of service are not good. So I don’t think naming the University after a certain person who fought to get whatever the University has attained now is important,” Blessed told Ghanaweb TV.
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