Henry Ametefe
The autonomy of the University of Health & Allied Sciences (UHAS) is being threatened by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Volta Region, led by the Regional Chairman, Henry Ametefe.
The chairman, in what many have described as a distasteful rant, warned the Vice-Chancellor of UHAS, Prof. John Owusu Gyapong, to be careful of his conduct at the university because he “is on the land of Voltarians”.
Mr. Ametefe, who was addressing journalists, made some serious allegations against Prof. Gyapong, whose reforms and initiatives have made the nine-year-old university the preferred place for health-related research in the West African sub-region.
Currently, the Institute of Health Research at UHAS is leading the Ghanaian consortium to conduct a quantitative study on the introduction of the new malaria vaccine (RTS) in Ghana.
And instead of commending the strides of the university, Mr. Ametefe rather accused Prof. Gyapong of “nepotism”.
Tribal Bigotry
“But what are we seeing? We have put an Abomoso citizen as our vice-chancellor. I know he is doing so many dirty things there and removing Voltarians; Ewe people. But all our people are quiet. Togbe Afede and all of them; why?” he queried.
He further incited the Ewes against the Akyems, saying, “And Volta Region, we have allowed Prof. Gyapong as vice-chancellor because we are very civilised people. If the Akyems do not know that Volta Region believes in civility then Prof. Gyapong must be careful that he is sitting on our land as a vice-chancellor in a university that we built without making noise.”
Checks show that although the staff of UHAS cut across persons from all parts of the country, it is dominated by people from the Volta Region, and the assertions of the NDC chairman could not be true.
Under Prof. Gyapong, UHAS has been able to build a 640-bed capacity hostel from its internally generated funds to increase its admission by 40 per cent.
Mr. Ametefe, a former Deputy Regional Minister under John Mahama, extended his hate-filled speech to the whole country, saying that Ewes were being discriminated against.
“Why what have we (Ewes) done? As I speak now, most of our prominent citizens who are in various positions in government have all been removed,” he claimed.
“Dr. Kwaku Awoonor, who is a very experienced medical practitioner, has no position now in the Ghana Health Service. He has been replaced by ineffective and incompetent doctor to take over from him, even though he groomed that person to position. Why? Prof. Mawutor Avorke was removed from University of Education, Winneba because he is not a son of the Fante soil,” he claimed further.
k.duodu@yahoo.com
From Fred Duodu, Ho