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Opinions of Wednesday, 24 October 2018

Columnist: Iddrisu Abdul Hakeem

'Congratulatory' letter to KNUST ‘Students' Revolutionary Council’ President Kelvin Sah

Students of KNUST vandalized school properties in Monday's demonstration Students of KNUST vandalized school properties in Monday's demonstration

Indeed, all things truly wicked begin from innocence.

Your Excellency, President Kelvin Sah of the now KNUST Students' Revolutionary Council, I 'congratulate' you for your successful rather demolition of our campus.

"Ayikoo"!!

Though I have a boat-load of questions for you in this open letter. I hope they find you well.

I recall when over twenty five aspirants, including my humble self, expressed our desire to be made the next crop of leaders of the Students' Representative Council that you have battered and metamorphosized into a rather Students' Revolutionary Council (SRC), earlier this year.

Mr. President, but before I get to the meat of this letter, I bring you an ancient wisdom. According to Chanakya (c. 370-283 BCE), the Serpent, the king (or President), the tiger, the stinging wasp, the small child, the dog, owned by other people, and the fool: these seven ought not to be awakened from sleep".

If I may quency my ideational appetite in a democratic society, let me confess that out of sheer mixture of anger and panic, I earlier decided to recoil into my shell and cultivate a culture of silence about your outrageous acts of 'baby' coup d'etat, and vandalism you vehemently carried out on our beautiful campus that has been given a facelift over the last two years by Professor Kwesi Obiri Danso, the Vice Chancellor.

However, as one of your subjects who have been writing copiously about developments surrounding the controversy in question since the mixing of the halls, majority of my readers think I tacitly endorsed your thuggery displayed as our leader.

I want to state in unequivocal terms, that as a former Shepherd (which I'm proud of) and a village-trained youngster, who was discovered by the university and MasterCard Foundation, I never in any way subscribe to any form of lawlessness, and therefore my silence is not a surrender to these criminal acts.

Mr. Kelvin Sah, the universe is so perfect in arrangement. Its laws are simply "Garbage in, Garbage out" (GiGo).

Nobody ever sows pepper into the universe and harvests Cocoa.

Power really does everything. It's true. Mr. SRC President, power can indeed do anything, including burning the wielders of it.

I'm afraid you would be consumed into ashes by your own powers because, the universe does work and reward everyone based on what they have put into it.

Mr. President, if somebody of your caliber and level of education can transfigure and transformed into a thug or a rebel leader, what can't the ordinary SHS leaver do?

Is the future of our nation safe?

Mr. President, there's nothing violent can achieve that peace, dialogue, and diplomacy cannot achieve cheaper, and as a people centered leader you must have known better.

Do you really believe it worth it burning down a house to get rid of a rat?

Certainly, introducing females into the halls was a repetition of history that took place 27 years ago when females were introduced for the first time into Republic and Independence Halls in 1991.

What is wrong, your Excellency, if the university decides to visit history in 2018/2019 academic year?

Do you believe such a transformative leadership showcased does not befit somebody like Professor Obiri Danso, the current Vice Chancellor?

And with regards to the so-called brutality meted out to those recalcitrant students who violated the university's order of suspending the traditional vigil, do you remember what happened to illegal miners who flouted government's ban on "galamsay"?

In a nutshell, the national security brutalized some of them and confiscated their tools for mining after an embargo was placed upon illegal mining.

The security were not on hard drugs or hated the illegal miners, but they treated them the way they did because the illegal miners simply didn't heed to instructions, and sacrificed their intellect as human beings, on the altar of aggradizement and lawlessness.

As a result, the security treated them with the disdain that they deserved.

Mr. President, the same thing applied to those recalcitrant students who rebelled against the university's orders of suspending the vigil.

I totally condemned their beatings though, but Mr. President with the Holy Bible on your palm, be honest, were you a security personnel would you kneel down to beg the students to dismiss after you have asked them not to even gang up?

As human beings, the intellect distinguishes us from the beasts of the Amazon, and so any time one compromises the intellect, he or she becomes like the Buffalo that may keep on going back to where it is unwelcome.

In such situations, the Buffalo is driven away by inflicting some pains on it so that at least, it may heed to that form of instruction as a bush cow.

Mr. President, how many times did the university, through the internal security, ask students not to embark upon vigil (Jammah)?

And as a result of the volatile atmosphere of the campus orchestrated by some students simply because they feel female students must not live in males only Halls, an Arab revolution must be staged to wage war against authority?

How can female counterparts sharing a balcony or entrance with their male counterparts, who often join these ladies elsewhere to sleep with them, or sit in class with them, involve them in group discussions, be inimical to the primary reason for which we are in the university and therefore calls for demonstration and demolition?

Mr. Students' Revolutionary Council Chairman, Kelvin Sah, most certainly, the burden of ingratitude is heavier than you think because even the Holy Books are against it.

Do you think it is fair to pay the Vice Chancellor back with the destruction you led to cause despite his good works which is mainly to create a relatively secure environment for students on campus?

Because females are introduced into males only halls?

Mr. Kelvin Sah, you are a disgrace to leadership if you didn't find anything good with all that you led your colleague thugs to destroy just because the Vice Chancellor mixed Halls of residence with the opposite sex.

But karma is real.

If I were the university I won't dismiss you. I would allow posterity to judge you.

Majority believe there are some invisible hands goading you on with this demolition exercise. But for all you know, the ugliest thing that can happen to any rising star, is to destroy his or her future for somebody's parochial interest.

Any student you have caused the inconvenience of having to pack out of campus within the number of hours the university instructed, won't go free. God may punish you in equal measure for that.

I personally console the Vice Chancellor to take solace in the words of Edmund Burke, when he observed that "tell me the prevailing sentiments that preoccupy the minds of the youth, and I will tell you what it's like, the future of your next generation"!

Prof. must understand that as a country yearning to develop, the human resource development is still paramount before developing our environment. Otherwise, if we have less developed human resource, we can't develop the environment and even if we do as he has done, it would be bulldozed by us.

What a country?

University students are worse than Rebels at this stage and age?

In short, Africa simply has no future after sixty something years of independence.

Clearly the future could be worse than the past.

It is unfortunate!

May God Bless Africa,

God Bless Ghana,

And God Bless KNUST.

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