Kwame Peprah Writes: UG Dean of Student Affairs is destroying UG's student governance system- and the UG VC and Governing Council must act now to avert a catastrophic end.
All over the world, student governance constitutes an integral part of the general management of educational institutions. As a result, in many developed and developing countries alike, student representatives are key partners of school managements in the everyday running of educational institutions; and in particular, the administration of student life and the representation of student challenges to school managements for resolution.
Unlike in other jurisdictions where student representative bodies are not backed by national laws, in Ghana, the Students' Representative Councils of the various public universities and other tertiary institutions are backed by the Acts of Parliament establishing these public universities and tertiary institutions. This is an indication of the premium importance the Ghanaian state places on student governance and representation.
At the University of Ghana (UG), the nation's premier university, the University of Ghana Students' Representative Council (UGSRC) is backed by the University of Ghana Act and recognized by the Act as the official umbrella representative body of all undergraduate students of UG (graduate students are represented by the local chapter of the Graduate Students Association of Ghana- GRASAG). In addition, the statutes of UG also provide for Junior Common Rooms (JCRs) at the halls of residence to represent students at the level of the halls of residence. Several other student associations exist for the representation of students at the level of the academic departments, schools and colleges. Together, the UGSRC, the GRASAG, the JCRs of the halls of residence, as well as the various departmental, school and collegiate associations form the core of UG's student governance architecture- which, notwithstanding various shortfalls, is enviably the nation's foremost student governance system.
This enviable position enjoyed by UG's student governance system is however threatened by the actions of the present Dean of Student Affairs, Professor Godfred Alufar Bokpin, whose administrative high-handedness, abuse of official power, lack of tact, double standards, biased judgments and outright disregard for the governing instruments of the various student representative bodies, is causing a gradual institutional decay and collapse of UG's student governance architecture.
It has just been reported that the SRC President-elect of the University of Ghana, Mr. Prince Asumadu, has on Friday, December 24, 2021, sued top officials of the University of Ghana (UG) at the Accra High Court in relation to the impasse at the UGSRC with regards to the recently concluded UGSRC elections. Popular news website, myjoyonline.com, reports that this brings to two, suits that have been filed by students against the University and/or its officers in relation to student electoral and governance matters, in just about two months (Caleb Kadu, a student of the university and a candidate for election to the office of JCR President at the Alexander Kwapong Hall, also filed an earlier suit in October at the High Court challenging his disqualification from the election by the Dean of Student Affairs).
The root cause of both civil actions, which are causing reputational damage to the University in the Ghanaian public, can be traced to actions taken by the Dean of Student Affairs, which in turn led to a series of events that caused the aggrieved students to head to the High Court to have their grievances addressed. In the case of the current impasse at the UGSRC, the Dean of Student Affairs gave a directive to the effect that all transition processes at the UGSRC be halted indefinitely while he constituted a committee to investigate alleged cases of irregularities and improprieties that allegedly occurred during the run-off elections held on October 29, 2021. In a meeting to announce the formation of the committee, held on November 3, 2021, the Dean of Student Affairs stated that the committee was formed given as the UGSRC Judicial Board was not properly constituted following the graduation from the university, of law students who were members of the Judicial Board. Then weeks later, the same Dean of Student Affairs convinces university management to give official recognition to a judgment from the same Judicial Board which he indicated was not properly constituted, and as a result, non-existent (a position which was also affirmed by the university's own Legal Counsel). This is where the problems began.
The Dean of Student Affairs, upon receiving the petitions, and realizing that the members of the Judicial Board have graduated from school, ought to have, as a matter of urgency, directed the relevant officers of the UGSRC to reconstitute the Judicial Board with other law students who were still pursuing their programmes of study at the university. With this properly constituted Judicial Board in place, the Dean of Student Affairs should have then referred the said petitions and/or petitioners to the properly constituted Judicial Board. But what did the Dean of Student Affairs do? He tactlessly formed a committee which he knew very well would be subject to a lot of controversy, and apparently granted the committee investigative and adjudicatory powers. Now, while one may not begrudge the Dean of Student Affairs for forming the fact-finding committee, it was certainly an administrative overreach to halt the transition processes, knowing very well that it could lead to a leadership crisis at the student front. In our experiences as a nation, on the two occassions (2012 and 2020) that there have been presidential election petitions filed at the Supreme Court, the candidates who were declared as elected by the Electoral Commissioner were sworn into office while the petitions were heard. Indeed, the situation is same with parliamentary election petitions, where the candidates declared elected are sworn into office while the petitions are heard. Our national courts have long maintained that this is to ensure the continuous representation of the people. On what basis therefore, does the Dean of Student Affairs depart from such national precedents and halt the transition processes simply because of the receipt of election petitions? Because of this singular directive by the Dean of Student Affairs, the UGSRC is leaderless today- given as the tenure of the 2020/21 (acting) executives has ended after the conclusion of the 2020/21 academic year. In few days, the university reopens for the 2021/22 academic year, yet the UGSRC is without executives- all because of the incompetent decisions and directives of the Dean of Student Affairs.
The current crisis is however, just one episode in a long series of very illegal and questionable actions by the Dean of Student Affairs. In the first semester of the 2019/20 academic year, in the aftermath of the Speakership election for the UGSRC General Assembly (GA), petitions were filed at the Judicial Board concerning certain people who voted in the election, who were in fact, not eligible to vote. The Judicial Board, after hearing the petitions, quashed the Speakership election and ordered a rerun based on the fact that the number of people who were not eligible to vote, but voted, exceeded the vote difference with which the winning candidate won the election. Days before the Judicial Board judgment could be executed and a fresh election conducted, the then UGSRC President, who was not even a party to the election petition, wrote to the Dean of Student Affairs to place a hold on the execution of the Judicial Board's judgment. The Dean of Student Affairs, upon receipt of this request from the SRC President, wrote to the General Assembly and Electoral Commission granting a three day stay of execution on the Judicial Board's judgment, and communicated in the letter that pursuant to the UGSRC Constitution, he would constitute the UGSRC Appeals Board to hear the substantive appeal. The Dean of Student Affairs never constituted the Appeals Board, and the three day stay of execution elapsed. Yet the Speaker whose election was declared null and void by the Judicial Board continued to stay in office as Speaker with the backing of the Dean of Student Affairs. The unfortunate effect of this was that the 2019/20 UGSRC General Assembly became a jungle after this episode, as many members, who decried the lawless display of abuse of power by the Dean of Student Affairs, did not regard the legitimacy of the Speaker.
In the recent impasse at the Alexander Kwapong Hall, the Dean of Student Affairs disqualified one of the presidential candidates after the first phase of the two-phase JCR elections in which the disqualified candidate participated as a candidate (the Dean of Student Affairs had earlier on, before the first phase of the elections, approved his academic eligibility to run). In the aftermath of that disqualification, it is reported that the SRC Judicial Board, in an appeal hearing, ruled that since the students who voted for the disqualified candidate in the first phase of the elections cannot be disenfranchised or have their votes not count in the determination of who the JCR President of the hall should be, the entire elections should be reconducted for the presidential portfolio, while all the provisions of the governing instrument for the elections be followed. The hall's JCR Electoral Commission, in following the directives of the SRC Judicial Board, and in adherence to the hall's JCR Constitution, which says that in the event only one candidate remains nominated for a position, a further nomination period of seven days be allowed for the nomination of other candidates, reopened nominations for other candidates to join the sole candidate who remained after the disqualification of one of the two presidential candidates. The Dean of Student Affairs, in his usual disregard for the governing instruments of the university's student bodies, wrote to the hall's JCR Electoral Commissioner that he did not recognize the reopening of nominations for the nomination of other candidates. He then went ahead, in a rather autocratic and desperate fashion, to remove the hall's JCR Electoral Commissioner and install another JCR Electoral Commissioner from another hall to conduct a second phase of elections for a sole candidate. These disastrous decisions, directives and manoeuvres by the Dean of Student Affairs culminated in a student of the university, Caleb Kadu, suing top officers of the university at the High Court. It is reported by myjoyonline.com that the Dean of Student Affairs has also been cited for contempt of court in this matter.
Several senior members of the university have served as Deans of Student Affairs since the establishment of the office. In recent times, the office has been occupied by Dr. James Adomako and before the current occupant, Prof. Francis Noono. During their respective tenures, they were confronted with a lot of student disputes, some perhaps even more complex than the present disputes at the student front. Yet, students never instituted High Court suits against the university; because these former Deans of Student Affairs navigated these disputes with open minds, emotional intelligence, and tact- so much so that at the end of the resolution processes, parties to disputes accepted the outcomes of the resolution processes in good faith. This is not the case with the current occupant of the office, Prof. Godfred Bokpin; and senior officers of the university must begin to conduct a critical assessment of his leadership if the never-ending disputes, suits and counter suits against the university by students as a result of his actions, are to come to an end.
The Governing Council of the university, the Vice Chancellor, the Pro Vice Chancellor responsible for Academic and Student Affairs, and indeed, all senior management members of the university must remember that it is not too long ago that student grievances at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) led to the most violent student protests the nation has witnessed in recent history. For now, students are resorting to suits at the national superior courts. Tomorrow, they may just learn a thing or two from their compatriots at KNUST if order is not restored to the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs. And when that happens, who will bear the ultimate blame and consequence? The answer is known to all.
Ernest Kwame Peprah
24/12/2021
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