For students pursuing a university degree to go completely naked and scare “little girls” at Republic Hall with highly erected and muscular sausages and timber trees resting on two ostrich eggs is shamelessly shameless, outright insanity and a stone age practice that shouldn’t be tolerated in whatsoever way in this 21st century of civility, discipline and morality.
Even in the most highest of animal kingdoms, where stupidity and vandalism is in the most highest order, there is discipline and control. How more a 21st century intellectual community like Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)?
As such, though a powerful Continental, I have to hide the Continentalism in me, face reality, speak the truth and strongly support the decision by the VC and Dean of Students to boycott the 46th Hall Week Celebration of Unity Hall (Conti) for their gross display of total lawlessness and the impunity with which they paraded themselves as they went on a procession to begin their Hall week celebrations. As usual, only a few of the hundreds that embarked on the procession displayed such acts.
Genuinely, I am impressed by the swiftness and alacrity with which the VC organised a meeting among university authorities to decide on whether the Hall Week Celebrations must be allowed to proceed as planned. The speed at which the meeting was conveyed and the urgency attached to this naked procession brouhaha is worth commending. Kudos to the VC, Dean of Students, and all those who sacrificed time, energy and resources in addressing the issue.
However, I would like to ask the same authorities as to whether they were informed of the horrendous horror and despicable atrocities that were suffered by a friend and a student of KNUST who was gang raped by 2 out of 8 armed robbers on the 7th of December at her homstel? Till date, university authorities to the best of my knowledge, have publicly kept mute on the mass gang raping and robbery of students that have bedeviled KNUST for years.
Three weeks ago, a level 200 medical student of Legon escaped an attempted rape by jumping from the first floor of her hostel. Though she wasn’t raped, Legon authorities and their SRC called press men and informed the whole nation about the ladies encounter. As the story made the headlines, the Vice President of Ghana visited her and made a 1,000 Ghana cedi cash donation to her. The Minister of Education, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, also visited her with her deputy Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa. Most importantly, checks from Legon indicate massive deployment of police and military personnel for patrols at night for hostel mostly terrorised by armed robbers. Security for now has improved.
Similarly, had the VC, Dean of Students, and our SRC organised just a press conference to inform Ghanaians about the security challenges confronting KNUST, the President might have heard and more soldiers and police could have been deployed to protect students and university authorities considering the fact that the rape saga at KNUST is more serious in comparison to what happened at Legon.
We the suffering students of KNUST humbly appeal to the VC and authorities to tackle the menace of gang raping and robbery that have confronted us for years. We see university authorities busily charging us for Vodafone SIM cards we never requested for, charging us health fees but still demand Health Insurance cards from us when we visit the Students’ Clinic or University Hospital yet we don’t see them busily finding solutions to our security challenges.
A university, nation and continent calls for duty now!!!
God bless KNUST and make us free from from robbery and rape.
