PRESS RELEASE BY - THE CONCERNED KATANGEES ON THE STUDENT PROTEST AT THE KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

    The University’s Public Relations Officer, Kwame Yeboah has subsequently clarified to Accra-based Joy FM that, with the placement of female students in Katanga hall, the University felt that “morale” could disturb the peace; morale is therefore “one of the banned activities on campus”.
 
  In setting the records straight for the benefit of the nation and those who do not know, we now submit as follows; Ghanaians must be made aware of a small but important catalogue of the abuse of students and student leaders on campus (particularly Unity and Katanga Halls) which has recently happened in the University.
    The University Security (Security) brutalised students singing Jama at the Royal Parade Grounds in front of Queens Hall which was captured on camera.
    The University Council immediately puts the Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students and the Katanga Hall Administration on administrative leave to enable comprehensive and impartial investigations to be conducted.
    On one Friday at one of the Jama Sessions, the Security brought an already damaged 4×4 vehicle towards Katanga Hall in an effort to create the narrative that it had been damaged by the students so as to give them the manufactured reason to brutalise the boys and put the fear of God in them.
    As a matter of urgency, the University issues an unqualified public apology to all students who have been subjected to physical assault by its security operatives and other forms of public humiliation and abuse.
    The University Council initiates impartial and comprehensive investigations into the misconduct and abuse of authority by the University management and campus security personnel, including the constitutionally- protected human rights of the students.
    This short-sighted decision to convert KATANGA is just an underhand attempt to kill student activism to the point where students are cowed into submission to every caprice and whim of the autocratic leaders of the university.
    The instruction from the Katanga Hall administration for all male students (now occupying only the annex of the hall), to vacate their rooms and congregate on the parade grounds in the hall because they were all singing Jama songs and it was the suspicion that they had been infiltrated by continuing students.
    The Association has been absolutely clear in all their press outings and petitions to the President of the Republic (His Excellency, Nana Ado Dankwa Akuffo-Addo), Chancellor of the University (His Royal Highness, Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II), the Council of State and the Minsters responsible for Education that, University authorities have unleashed a reign of abuse, intimidation and terrorism with the ultimate goal of killing student activism especially in Katangees.
    It is also worth mentioning that the University had previously blocked all fire exits to the hall leaving only the porters lodge as an escape route for the over 1000 students in the hall.
    Continuing students of KATANGA have been banished from using any facilities in the hall, including the restaurant that caters to the general student population.
    For those who don’t know, to keep out the “unwanteds” from the hall starting from this academic year, the hall can only be accessed by residents or authorised persons because the University has installed card access systems at the entrance, has the hall riddled with CCTV and has mobile security guards always stationed at the front and at the porters lodge.
    Was that a deliberate ploy by you to bring in rented hoodlums to cause damage and so you could pin it on the students? Where were you on the day? You are the administrators of the University paid at public expense to do just that and like the cowards that you have proven to be, you abandoned ship so that your surrogates could cause havoc for you to pin on the Association.
    The lies would not stick! The University laughably has sought to link the events of 22nd October 2018 to the decision to convert KATANGA into a mixed hall.
    The Inspector General of Police instructs his men and women to desist from being appendages of the autocratic University management, and impartially deliver their mandate to protect lives and property, including of the students.
    Following the incidents at the forecourt of the hall, the students peacefully marched to the security post and subsequently to the police station in solidarity with their arrested colleagues.
    As stakeholders in the affairs of the University and especially Katanga Hall, we were duty bound to make a statement whilst we await a formal one from the Alumini Association (the Association).