Prior to the CAN 2008 football tournament hosted by Ghana, the government of Ghana used resources from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to construct a hostel facility at the Tamale Campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS).

The said facility was meant to accommodate visitors for the games. Fast forward, the games were over and the government handed over the facility to the University for Development Studies.

Upon taking over, the University named the facility as “UDS International Conference Centre” and that was to be the end of any good story from there. In less than 13 years, that magnificent building was left to rot. The building is currently in a horrible state due to poor maintaince culture and incompetence. One would expect that a university that goes with the tag “development studies” will offer a shining example to the rest of the world when it comes to management.

Sadly, the UDS has so far positioned itself as a home of incompetence, mediocrity, corruption and mismanagement.

Pieces of zinc on the CAN 2008 hostel facility has been removed and left unattended to. A good number of the floors and rooms are now home to birds, bats and lizards. Rain water freely goes into the zinc less portions of the building leading to deteriotion of the wood and walls but nobody seem to give a fuck.

In the mist of all these, students are renting poor quality rooms for thousands of Ghana cedis per semester while a beautiful accommodation facility have been left to rot in the very heart of the campus. Strangely, there are big stomach people walking about and taking salary in the name of the hostel. Somebody even calls himself a manager.

Just by travelling on the Tamale – Kumasi road, one can see the contrite state of the unmaintained roof of the building. So the question I keep asking is this. What kind of development is the university teaching? Painfully, I will like to end this with a prayer. May the gods of our land fight for us and rip us off all greedy and incompetent men and women in the public services. Amen.