The overarching body for all students in Ghana, the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) will be holding a unity congress to elect a single/united set of officers to steer the activities of the union for the 2019/2020 academic. The union, after 2009 has witnessed divisions with almost each year seeing the Union set apart majorly on partisan fronts. With the mandate to oversee the activities of its six blocs; Graduate Students Association of Ghana, Ghana Union of Professional Students, University Students Association of Ghana, Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana, Regional Student Representative Councils (SRCs) and National Health Sciences Students Association of Ghana, NUGS has witnessed flaws in its oversight responsibilities as a result of these divisions.

Much as different narrations point to diverse dates on the creation of NUGS the most reliable of the narratives is that of Adu Boahen in in his work Africa Students Movement from 1960-75, which places the date at 1959. The union had been at the cutting edge of influencing governmental policies especially in the area of education and also serving as a mass advocacy and pressure group on government for many decades. Its role as a pressure group had/has particularly witnessed ample opposition from successive governments, leading to different governments making ample efforts to create pseudo or parallel structures to the functioning of the union. In the erstwhile regime of the first President of Ghana, H. E. Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, pressure from the union culminated into the regime creating the National Association of Socialist Students Organization (NASSO) - a student wing of the Convention Peoples Party to rival NUGS. In the last ten years, though there have not been rival national student group opposing NUGS, political parties seem to have succeeded in dividing the ranks of the union by recognizing their fatefuls who create parallel NUGS structure without recourse to the constitution of the union, alas using the Union as a pseudo wing of the major political parties, depending on the party in power.

NUGS in the Last 10 Years

In 2009, an election at the union’s congress at the University of Education - Kumasi witnessed the election of Wonder Madilo as President. Wonder ended his regime at the Wa congress with Anthony Abotsie Afriyie being elected President (2010). Abotsie’s regime did not last a year with accusations amongst members of his executive committee leading to his disputed removal in 2010. Hamza Sayibu Suhiyini was elected at the emergency congress held at the Zenith University College to replace Abotsie. This saw the division of the union in 2010 as both leaders held themselves as Presidents with followings from different constituent university SRCs. Both Presidents handed over to different factional Presidents in the ensuing year. Osman Ayariga became elected at the Ho congress at the Ola Senior High School (2011) in Hamza’s congress with Peter Kwasie Kodjie holding the fort for the Anthony Abotsie Afriyie regime. The year saw both of them running parallel structures until close to their tenure when they brokered peace for a joint congress.

The joint congress at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was truncated seeing a reconvergence at the Ghana National Association of Teachers Hall in Accra where Andrews Kofi Gyan (2012) was elected. The Gyan led administration organized the Central University College congress; a truncated one which was later reconvened at the University of Education - Winneba seeing Samuel Binfoh elected President (2013). After a successful non-splinter regime, Binfoh handed over power to Prosper Dzitse at the Akokeri College of Education, Congress (2014). After Prosper, Michael Paa Kwesi Adu took over the mandate of running the union (2015) being elected at an emergency congress at the Islamic University College following a truncated congress at Okwapiman Secondary School in Okropong. Paa Kwesi’s regime handed over the Presidency to Julian Mawusi Kobina (2016) at the Saint Francis Training College Hohoe. Dispute resulting into a splinter leadership emerged seeing Lugman Abubakar running the affairs of the union as co-President with Julian. Their tenure ended with ceremonies handing over the union to another set of a splinter leaderships led by Frank Amoakohene emerging from the Julian faction (at the offices of the Vice chancellors Ghana) and Elijah Essuman from the Luqman faction (20117). Amoakohene handed over to Gombilla Mohammed whiles Elijah handed over to Tinkaro Asare at the Methodist University (2018).

In the current arrangement that will see Ghanaian student hopeful of a union that will not be divided and representing their interests, the Tinkaro and Gombilla Mohammed led splinter regimes, have drawn membership of the union from all of the 6 blocs across the country in a bid to elect leadership representative an accepted of all the six blocs of the union.

The Central Committee Meeting and its Electoral Resolution

As part of measure to ensure the union gets united, the two factions have agreed at a Central Committee meeting at the Knutsford University in Accra to have a united congress which will see both rival Presidents and their executives supervising an all-inclusive election that will rebirth a new leadership. The two factions settled on 16-20th October for the congress at a venue to be communicated to delegates later. Following past experiences of such arrangements, it is hoped that both parties stick to the decision of the joint central committee meetings. In most instances, the fall outs repeat after these arrangements, when one faction( usually those whose political parties are in opposition) feel cheated without opportunity for redress either in filling of nomination, vetting or any other process leading to the election.

Will the Political Interference Stop?

Politics is a product of interest at a time and since political parties do not have time limits to their interest in governing states, it appears to me, they will continue to influence students to do their bidding to the detriment of the larger student interest. Typically, the National Union of Ghana Students has suffered this fate over the period with politicians funding student campaigns, encouraging ‘splinterism’ and in some instances, making self-declared NUGS leaders without recourse to the structures of the union. Though pathetic, many have benefitted while others suffer from these happenings orchestrated by political actors in the country.

Related to the above is Partisan entrenchment by successive NUGS leaderships. Most times, student leaders sympathetic to the course of a given political party would want to handover mandate to yet another person sympathetic to the same course. In this regard, they tend to use fair or foul means to hand over power to their partisan cronies leading to splinterism or fractured regimes.

Whiles establishing my opinion on the major political parties, especially the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the key cause of the recurrent problems of NUGS can be attributed to weak leaderships of NUGS executives and aspirants. The union is run within the remits of a constitution, thus implementing the constitution to the latter ensures proper change of leadership; one many successive NUGS leaderships have not been able to do. With this in mind, it would be expected that, aspirants hoping to lead the union will contest in elections properly organized to merit the confidence of congress. However, it appears most would rather declare themselves leaders of the union hanging on political support of the government of the day which is lenient to their course.

Albeit, weak or rather slow or perhaps lack of respect for the Ghanaian Courts system has also caused this headache for the union over time. In many instances when the courts rule against an illegal NUGS regime, they continually held themselves as leaders of the union without attracting punitive measures from the judicial system of the country.

What Should Be Done

Card bearing members of the identified youth wings of political parties should automatically be disqualified from contesting the union positions since the union is explicit of its non-partisan stance per the preamble of its constitution.

An administrator of the union should be elected, appointed or employed by congress for a period not less than five years to ensure continuity and electoral rightness of the union.

To maintain the process that will kick start in October, it is to be observed that, delegates must look beyond their political lenses but elect competent leaders.