An emergency congress to elect a representative for All Africa Students’ Union (AASU) by the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) over the weekend turned violent.
The event, which took place at the Navrongo campus of the University of Development Studies (UDS) in the Upper East region, saw a gentleman believed to be in the camp of one of the aspirants threatening the NUGS President, Mr. Paa Qwecy Adu, if his candidate, Mr. Peter Kwasi Kodjie, was disqualified.
Consequently, the election which was supposed to have taken place on Saturday, April 9, 2016 was postponed to Sunday, April 10.
As a result of this the deputy Dean of the Navrongo campus of UDS, who gave his name as Mr. Jambo, asked the police personnel present to drive away the students from the venue so as to safeguard properties of the school.
But that decision did not go down well with some of the delegates who then rained insults on the Dean with some accusing him of doing the bidding of a political party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
However, the removal of the delegates did not prevent them from attacking each other physically and verbally.
Prior to all this, Messrs Mohammed S. Adams, Peter Kwasi Kodjie and Innocent Badasu had filed to run as NUGS’s representative of AASU.
And any of these gentlemen would have contested other representatives from other countries to become the secretary general of AASU if that person was given the nod.
The congress which saw hundreds of Students’ Representative Council (SRC) executives from all the tertiary institutions across the country, regional SRCs, Graduate Students’ Association (GRASAG,) University Students’ Association of Ghana (USAG,) Ghana Union of Professional Students (GUPS,) Private University Students’ Association of Ghana (PUSAG) among others started peacefully with delegates arriving on Friday to cast their ballot on Saturday and departing on the following day.
Speaking with Today in an interview supporters of Mr. Kodjie claimed they had snippets of information which suggested their candidate was going to be disqualified hence their decision to protest.
“This nonsense must stop! How can you disqualify someone whose academic qualifications are higher than the Vetting Committee chairman? The chairman was dismissed from school… he has no qualification to vet these people,” a supporter of Mr. Kodjie fumed.
Some supporters of Messrs Badasu and Adam also charged the president of NUGS to ensure the elections take place since they could not afford to incur debts for travelling up North.
Earlier, it was reported in sessions of the media that the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Navrongo, Stanislav Kadigni, had been accused by NUGS of meddling in the elections. President of NUGS, Mr. Adu, however, denied the claims, accusing GRSAG President, Raymond Ayilu, of peddling falsehood when he spoke on Accra-based Joy FM.
Mr. Ayilu told the media that Mr. Kadigni must be blamed for the confusion that occurred during the Central Committee meeting.
He accused the DCE of influencing the Vetting Committee of NUGS to disqualify Mr. Kodjie. “Meanwhile the election that was set to come off on Sunday was postponed indefinitely due to “some legal issues.”
According to Mr. Adu, two of the aspirants and their supporters boycotted the elections and subsequently left Navrongo, hence the fear that the outcome of the elections would challenged in court.
Leadership of student unions and SRCs across the country are mandated by NUGS constitution to meet every four years to elect a representative for the continental students’ body – AASU.
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