By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu, has warned that whoever wins the December 7 Presidential election has no choice but to hit the ground running in rallying the nation toward addressing the prevailing economic difficulties or risk the danger of a revolution that would shatter any aspirations.
In doing so, the Asantehene suggested homegrown, innovative, and creative economic solutions without over-relying on foreign aid since, according to him, most donor countries are also currently having to contend with their domestic issues, particularly in ‘an era of America first’.
Otumfuo Osei Tutu made the call in Kumasi at the Congregation of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
“Like many countries in the post Covid war, our economy is not in good shape. Whoever wins is going to have a battle on his hands to rejuvenate the economy. Thirdly, the world is in turmoil, and even the most powerful nations have been consumed by domestic priorities with little to spare for others. The old shoulders you cried on may be overloaded with their own domestic issues to be able to care for others, especially in this America First era,” he observed.
He said, “every voter in Ghana must know that whoever wins the election must hit the ground running or risk the revolution of shattered dreams.”
The Asantehene, who is also the Chancellor of the KNUST, expressed serious concerns about the prevailing political impasse in parliament, observing that, if not amicably resolved now, it could spiral to affect bipartisan cooperation in the next Parliament.
“On the evidence of the 4th Republic, it should be clear to all our political protagonists that no party is in a position to win such an absolute majority. It cannot administer the affairs of the country without the bi-partisan cooperation of the other party…tragically, the current impasse has so raptured our bi-partisan spirit that it threatened to spiral over into the future threatening the prospect of bi-partisan cooperation of the next Parliament,” Otumfuo Osei Tutu noted with concern.
The Senior Advisor to President Akufo-Addo, Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo, commended KNUST for its leadership role in technological advancement, including being Ghana’s first tertiary institution to introduce an Over Virtual Reality Studio for teaching and learning and urged it to share its experiences with the other universities in the country.
“We urge KNUST to make its experience in the space available to its sister institutions and to try to influence our technical institutions as much as possible. I think that KNUST should establish a linkage with the technical schools, not the tertiary, with the view to influencing them technologically so that we have a mass product of people with skills which you have helped to create,” the former Education, Youth & Sports Minister advised.
This year’s Congregation of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, which is the 58th, saw the graduation of 19 thousand, 254 of its undergraduate and postgraduate students in 15 sessions.
The last session was used to confer Masters and PhD degrees on 575 postgraduate students, including 165 females with the doctor of philosophy, while Master Isaac Oniti of the Computer Engineering Department, with a Cumulative Weighted Average of 87.84, who was adjudged as the overall best graduating student, was rewarded with a Certificate, a laptop computer, and an undisclosed sum of cash.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Mrs. Rita Dickson, disclosed that, during the just-ended academic year, the University, through the efforts of its staff, won a total of 10.6 million Dollars in grants to undertake different projects, including research.
The management also distributed three thousand laptop computers valued at 23 million Ghana Cedis to some of its needy students for their studies.
The Vice Chancellor announced that KNUST has now become one of the only three Universities in Africa to obtain an International Institutional Accreditation of quality assurance.
