FLASHBACK: UG VC speaks on proposal to rename university in honour of JB Danquah

During parliamentary proceedings on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, the Minority Chief Whip and Member of Parliament for Nsawam-Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, brought back the issue of the renaming of the University of Ghana (UG) after the late J B Danquah, a key figure in his party, the NPP’s UP tradition.

Annoh-Dompreh expressed his disappointment over opposition to the renaming of UG after the late Joseph Boakye (JB) Danquah.

It can be recalled that in 2024, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, spoke on a suggestion by the then President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that the university should be renamed after Ghanaian statesman, the late J B Danquah.

Speaking in an interview on JoyNews’ The Pulse programme, Prof. Appiah Amfo refuted the assertion that some people who contributed meaningfully to the establishment of the university, like J B Danquah, have not been properly recognised.

She added that there are different ways of recognising people who have contributed massively to the development of the university, and that this has been done.

“I think that all those who played significant roles in the establishment of the university have properly been acknowledged. What the president was advocating for was a renaming of the university after him (J. B. Danquah).

“But that is something that is subject to a huge debate. There are various ways in which to acknowledge people who have contributed to the establishment of the university. And we have a whole avenue named after J. B. Danquah—that is the major avenue in this university,” she told JoyNews’ Blessed Sogah.

The academic also refuted the assertion that the university lacks an identity because it is not named after an individual.

“The University of Ghana represents the nation; it represents the nation, and this is a brand that is well known all over the world, all of these years. It is representative of the nation,” she stressed.

Akufo-Addo came under intense public scrutiny after he suggested that UG should be named after J B Danquah, his uncle, while addressing a gathering at the 75th Anniversary Thanksgiving Service of the university.

He detailed some of the events that led to the influence that both J. B. Danquah and some other founding members of the country had on the decision to build the country’s first public university.

The president also described JB Danquah’s role in the establishment of the University of Ghana as an ‘inestimable work,’ which should be rewarded with his name being put on the university.

This hope, as President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo stated, could become a reality soon.

UG Vice Chancellor speaks on Akufo-Addo's suggestion to rename the university after J B Danquah

What Akufo-Addo said:

“And for me, the most poignant of those memories is the inestimable work Dr. J. B. Danquah did to mobilise the Ghanaian people to insist on the building of this university. It was the inspired leadership vision of this great scholar and nationalist, who was described in his lifetime as the doyen of Gold Coast politics, that, following the establishment of the Elliot Commission, tasked by the colonial government to inquire into the possibility of establishing a university in West Africa, enabled the Ghanaian people to reject the original decision of the British colonial government, based on the majority recommendation of the Elliot Commission, that a single university be established in Ibadan, in Nigeria, for the whole of the then British West Africa, and got it to agree, through a series of passionate interventions in the then Legislative Council.

“And with the enthusiastic support of the founders of Ghana for the creation of a separate university for our country, on the basis of his minority recommendation. How felicitous was that decision and how greatly it has contributed to the growth of modern Ghana. It would be wholly appropriate, and not at all far-fetched, to describe Joseph Boakye Danquah as the founder of this university—a fact which, on the 75th anniversary of its existence, should be vividly recalled by all of us who have been, and are, the beneficiaries of his work.

“Indeed, in many other jurisdictions where there is less heat in their politics and more attachment to the historical records, it would not have been out of place to have this university named after him. Who knows, one day, it may well happen,” he said.

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