Lead Convener of a group calling itself, Concerned Students of the University of Ghana, Eugene Boakye has revealed that the Yabre Mo demonstration held on Friday, 3 February 2023 is the beginning of a lot more demonstrations and strategies that the group will adopt to drum home challenges students in the University continue to face.
The “Yabre Mo” demonstration was organized by concerned students from the University of Ghana to protest against some happenings in the University.
The protestors cited increment of fees, brutalizing students by security officials, and accommodation crisis, among others.
Eugene Boakye however revealed that the demonstration was ” just the tip of the iceberg” should management refuse to attend to their plights.
“The yabr3 mo 2.0 demonstration,shows how we are angered, and this is just the beginning if our demands are not met because our demands are plain and simple, you can achieve them, or you can get solutions to them immediately in this coming week, students were sent to the diaspora, were given an ultimatum, that is 10th February, 2023. They should take us back, we don’t care how they are going to do it ,they should take us back because that is not what we signed up for and then you don’t have a prove that person A, is responsible. You can’t punish a whole number of people, just for a few people’s crimes. “Yabre mo” is just the beginning if they don’t attend to our needs.
They should brace themselves for a bigger ones if they don’t meet our plight or problems immediately. “
He added that the demonstration was to ensure that the recurring problems of students were solved.
“”Yabre mo” we are tired of you, over the years some of this issue keeps recurring nothing has been been done about it.We want to see that solutions are being meted out to this problem.
We’ve not being seeing it, clearly students are suffering, clearly students are agitated, and when all this issue comes together you have concerned students coming out in their numbers to register their displeasure ,and how issues are being run in the school. “Yabre mo”, because we are tired of how things are being run ,we are tired of members of the University management not listening to us students”.
Eugene Boakye also claimed UG management breached Parliament directives of a 15% increment of fees. He has therefore called for a refund of payments by the institution.
“The unlawful increment of school fees is one of the issue, unlawful because the parliament has given a directive, who are you to go contrary to that, this directive was given out of several considerations, parents are suffering, things are hard in the country, so they gathered all of this issues and came up with a plan that as University you might want to increase your fees but don’t surpass this particular threshold ,I don’t think the University whether autonomous or not should go contrary to the directives of the parliament of Ghana.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Education came out to direct public tertiary institutions who have gone up against this particular directives to go back and rescind their decision, up until now we have seen no change in this regard.
Students have paid, so what we demand is a refund, the 15%increment was supposed to be on last academic year’s fees so whatever explanation they have brought up, they have gone against the directives of parliament. That is gross insubordination, and we demand refunds. Students demand refunds. 15% is 15%, so don’t surpass it”.
Eugene Boakye added that the exorbitant residential fees prevented some students from enrolling in the University. He is therefore calling on management to hasten processes to build new hostels.
“We want members of the University management to start springing up hostels on the university of Ghana Campus so that students will pay monies for hostels at a very moderate prices.
A lot of people are deterred from coming to the University of Ghana, to come and study because they can not pay for residential accommodation, because they are coming from far places they cannot pay.
Meanwhile, the Director of Public Affairs at the University of Ghana, Elizier Ameyaw – Buronyah said decisions taken by the University of Ghana management were in the students’ interest.
“All the decisions taken by management are in the interest of students. Students should appreciate the actions, other than agitating”
Parliament’s committee on education has taken steps to meet the management of the University of Ghana and the agitating students to find lasting solutions to the issues raised by the students. The meeting however ended inconclusively and it is set to take place at a later date that is yet to be communicated.
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Story by; Cindy Humade | univers.ug.edu.gh
