There was a sequence of protests on Monday, 30 December 2024, in Navrongo, a town in the Upper East region, against an attempt reportedly being led by the Bishop of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Catholic Diocese, Most Rev. Fr. Alfred Agyenta, to remove the principal of the St. John Bosco College of Education, Prof. Joseph Amikuzuno, from office.
The protesters, who were the students of the school and Navrongo natives, told journalists during the street protests that the principal had been asked to hand over on Tuesday, 31 December 2024.
According to them, he was being removed because he was preventing some members of the college’s governing council, chaired by the bishop, from misusing the school’s funds as had been the practice at the deprived school before he took over as a principal and began to change both the system he met and the school.
The protesting students had scheduled a demonstration for Monday, asking those willing to participate and the press to converge at 9:00 a.m. in front of the school’s main gate.
Wearing scarlet-red polyester fabrics around their heads, necks and wrists to represent their grief, the students gathered at the venue around the given time with a brass band. But they soon found themselves in a state of shock when a police team arrived at the scene on a crowded black pickup and said “an order from above” had asked that the demonstration should not take place.
Tempers flared immediately among the students against the police because of the message. When some journalists approached the police officers for further explanation, a tall light-skinned man to whom the question was directed because one of the students said he was the police commander in charge of the area, walked away from them without a word.
But the tall policeman walked back to the angry students after a short time. He stood in front of one of the students’ leaders, Koka Alexander Kolog, who was screaming in front of the angry crowd that nobody would stand in the students’ way.
The policeman lowered his own head, pointed a finger at the young man and angrily said, “I will pick you.”
Undeterred by what he just heard, the young man walked away from that spot and screamed out the words again within earshot of the police.
The policeman was looking at him, not sure what to do to him immediately. The screaming young man is a former organising secretary of the college’s students’ representative council (SRC).
Protesting students claim police gave green light for demonstration
Later, a young state security officer, wearing a banana-yellow shirt in the midst of the uniformed police personnel, said the demonstration was being stopped because the organisers failed to notify the police of their intention within the required five days before the date of the demonstration.
Reacting to that claim at the scene, the students admitted that they notified the police command in Navrongo in less than the stipulated five days.
But they said they had engaged the command in a meeting where they explained how rescheduling the demonstration, an alternative they did not want, would affect some of the students who had travelled to Navrongo from afar to participate in the rally.
They stated that the command, after listening to that explanation, then asked them to go ahead with the demonstration.
The students had planned to take their demonstration into the school’s campus, where the governing council was going to hold a morning meeting ahead of the handover formality slated for Tuesday. But the police officers stood in front of the gate to hinder them.
The students boiled the more and vented their frustrations in front of press cameras, saying the police had been compromised to violate their rights to peacefully demonstrate and questioning the source of the so-called “order from above”.
As the police remained at the gate, news suddenly got to the students that the governing council had called off the meeting because of the protests.
The news changed the course of events as the students left the scene for the palace of the Chief of Gongnia, Naba Jacob Adanigna, to present a written petition to him. They moved from there to the palace of the Paramount Chief of Navrongo, Pe Dennis Aniakwoa Balinia Adda Asagpaare II, for the same purpose.
The principal’s impact in infrastructure
The protesting students and residents of the town said the bishop had not provided any justifiable reasons, even in a letter he reportedly wrote to the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), for seeking to push the principal out of the college.
And while condemning the bishop’s move, the protesters also explained how the principal had transformed the school so far, and spoke about the contributions he had made towards its growth since he took over as principal on September 1, 2020.
He has constructed on the campus a 1,500-capacity auditorium abandoned in 2012, put up a 2-unit lecture block from the foundation of a building that was abandoned in the 1980s and completed a school wall project abandoned in 1992.
A 300-capacity, 3-storey hostel is also being built under his tenure and some investors from the United States of America are expected to arrive in the college soon through his initiative to provide the institution with some facilities in a build-operate-and-transfer deal.
All the lecture halls, hostels and six among the staff bungalows on the campus have been renovated. The once-leaking library block and the buildings where the University of Education Winneba (UEW) conducts its distance and e-learning programmes within the college have been reroofed.
His inputs in the welfare of students, staff
There were only two senior tutors at the college when Prof. Amikuzuno took over as principal in 2020.
But currently, the college has more than ten senior tutors and one principal tutor. Besides, several non-teaching staff including the college’s librarian, internal auditors, procurement officer, budget officer and some junior staff are said to have been promoted under his tenure.
Until he took over in 2020, the past students of the college reportedly were not in one association; they were separated in associations formed and named only according to the years they graduated from the school. He brought them together and, through that effort, the now-united alumni have renovated all the halls of residence on the campus.
To deal with a water stress that had beset the college for decades, he drilled and mechanised three boreholes on the campus and provided tanks for water distribution to the school’s students, staff and gardens.
Recently, he sourced 2000 students’ desks, 100 library desks and shelves, 50 staff office tables and chairs, 200 desktop and 20 laptop computers as well as 600 students’ beds and mattresses among other pieces of equipment from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for the college.
Contributions towards academic growth
He recruited 77 of the 138 staff the college currently has and he increased the school’s student population from less than 1,000 to 1, 729 in the 2023/2024 academic year.
In the 2021/2022 academic year, he added Basic Education in Early Childhood to the school’s curriculum and introduced a remedial plug-in programme in the school to intensively prepare second-cycle students for examinations and admissions into tertiary institutions.
He transformed the college’s basic school into a model institute and his construction of a facility named “B. K. Tsetse Students Innovation Centre” in the school in 2021 increased students’ participation in college governance.
Also under his tenure, the school produced its first ever comprehensive, 5-year College Strategic Plan in 2022 and renewed about 19 college governing policies some of which are awaiting council approval. The school’s Education for Research and Development (ER4D) programme has boosted staff interest and efforts in community service, research and publications at the school in the last four years.
In addition to the existing memorandum of understanding (MOU) the college has with its mentor university, Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED), the principal has also initiated agreement protocols with the Bolgatanga Technical University, the Tumu College of Education, the Don Bosco Institute, Our Lady of Grace Senior High School and some communities.
Influence in building unity and improving college appearance
A civil case had run in court for decades in a dispute over some 18 acres of land between the school and some natives of Gongnia, the community where the college is situated.
The natives involved in the litigation had their homes on the school’s campus from where they had declined to relocate because they reportedly were not compensated when the land was acquired to establish the school.
Prof. Amikuzuno inherited that 42-year-old dispute from his predecessors and settled it peacefully out of court.
In addition to the above, he has also improved the appearance of the school. The college’s walls and some of its structures have been painted with graphic designs that reflect the culture of the Kassena-Nankana people and statues of St. John Bosco and St. Francis of Assisi now stand inside the campus to mirror the Catholic faith on which the school was established.
To further boost the Catholic outlook, the principal also constructed Casa Maria (Mary’s Home) for chaplaincy board, choir and children’s Sunday liturgy meetings.
He also built the Stations of the Cross and added the Vatican flag to the national and college flags at the school’s main gate.
The principal created what is called a “Tripartite College-Alumni-SRC Pavement Project” through which some paths that are usually muddy during the rainy season on the campus are being paved today with the contributions from the college, the alumni and the students’ representative council.
Currently, he is greening the campus with ornamental and landscape plants and further improving the appearance of the main gate after electronically labelling it some months ago.
A man of the people
As the protesting students walked through the streets of the capital accompanied by the press towards the premises of the Kassena-Nankana Municipal Assembly to present a copy of their petition to the government, residents told journalists why the entire town loved the principal.
“Why are you sacking such a man? He is very disciplined, he is humble, he is very honest. Look at the way he has developed the school. The school was not like this. Many heads came there and we never saw what this man has done.
“And you want to remove such a person, for what? What kind of society are we living in such that the right people must leave and the wrong people should come and be chopping (embezzling) the money. That is what they are trying to do. This is a man who is supposed to be a minister,” a popular businessman in the area, William Timbilla, told Media Without Borders.
Another resident, who introduced himself as Samuel Apuri Amoah, told journalists with a tone of anger that ‘Satan’ had entered the college to get rid of the principal.
“You see, Satan captures more than Jesus at times. So, what Satan wants to do in the school there he hasn’t had the chance to do it because this man (the principal), I believe, should be a divine person. Satan wants people who will come and they wouldn’t do the right thing.
“If government says use this money for this, they wouldn’t do it. Satan is in the school. It’s Satan [that] is working on those people who are trying to whip out that man from the school there,” he stated, adding that he would continue to defend the principal even if it would cost him his own life.
The residents’ comments echoed the remarks made by the two traditional authorities when the protesting students visited their palaces earlier on Monday.
The two chiefs and some other traditional authorities of the area had, in appreciation of the principal’s work and prior to the street protests, written petitions separately to GTEC against the move to remove the principal from the college.
“We are all rallying behind the principal to be given more time to continue with his good work. We have seen that some people come to the college not to develop it but to loot and go. But this man has come to develop the college and transform Navrongo,” said the paramount chief of Navrongo when the students visited him.
You will feel the heat— MCE tells unconcerned persons
Soon after the students arrived at the assembly’s premises to deliver the petition, some members of the community joined them to present their own petition to the government.
“We would further like to bring to your notice, Mr President, that the community through the chief earlier petitioned GTEC and the college council chairman, requesting them to rescind their decisions but they felt adamant. They disrespected the chief and his people and disregarded our petition, thereby necessitating this petition.
“We respectfully urge you, Mr President, to intervene in this matter and exert your authority to compel GTEC and the college council chairman to reconsider their decision not to renew or retain Prof. Joseph Amikuzuno,” read a portion of the community’s petition, presented by Maxwell Apeligiwine Ayoganne.
After that presentation, Kolog, the former SRC organising secretary mentioned earlier, reiterated the achievements the principal had chalked at the college.
“Nobody is fighting against the Catholic institution. Nobody is fighting against the Catholic Church. We are not fighting against the bishop. But we are fighting for the right thing to be done,” Kolog added.
Receiving the petitions, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the area, Joseph Adongo, testified that Prof. Amikuzuno had transformed the college since he took over as the head of the school.
“Anybody who lives in Navrongo, anybody who has education as his concern, would know what is happening in Navrongo, would see the transformation that has taken place within the short period of the reign of Prof. Amikuzuno. And we are happy we are hearing that, from the top, it has been acknowledged that the gentleman has done very well and should be reappointed.
“Whatever you have brought here, we will forward it. We want the whole world to understand that this is the voice of the people in the country, not only in Navrongo, and we are ready to stand by it. Anybody who thinks that this thing does not concern him will eventually feel the heat,” the MCE stated.
The letter the bishop wrote before the protests
Prof. Amikuzuno moved on secondment (the temporary transfer of a worker to another position or workplace) to the college from the University for Development Studies (UDS) in the Northern region, where he was the vice-dean of the Faculty of Agribusiness and Applied Economics.
He was granted a full-term appointment by GTEC as the principal of the college for four years renewable for another four years based on satisfactory performance.
When his first four-year tenure was about to end, he submitted a letter to the school’s governing council during a meeting, requesting for an extension by one year from January 2025 to December 2025. The council accepted the letter and forwarded it to GTEC for advice.
In response, GTEC denied him the request, asking him to choose between going back to the university (UDS) or continuing as the principal of the college for another four years.
He opted for an extension by another four years as the principal of the school. GTEC granted the four-year appointment from January 2025 to December 2028. Then, the commission directed the college’s council in a letter written by its director-general, Prof. Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai, to confirm the extension through due process.
But the bishop, upon receiving a copy of that letter from GTEC, “unilaterally” wrote to the commission, indicating that the council would terminate Prof. Amikuzuno’s appointment by December 31, 2024, and appoint a new principal for the college.
“The council shall notify the principal appropriately of the end of his tenure on 31st December, 2024, and proceed to initiate process to appoint a new principal by 31st December, 2024, to uphold the principles of our Catholic faith, transparent and decisive governance and stable leadership in the college,” the bishop wrote.
Although Prof. Amikuzuno had the majority of the 13-member council on his side, GTEC supported the bishop’s wish to terminate the principal’s appointment.
The bishop hardly responds to media requests for comments on protests seen under his administration since he took over the diocese on June 29, 2011.
When the author of this report contacted him in 2014 after some members of the church complained in the region’s capital, Bolgatanga, that some individuals had misappropriated church funds, he did not respond before press time.
This author reached out to him again when confusion broke out four months ago during a Sunday mass at a branch of the church in Sumbrungu over alleged misappropriation of church funds; he did not reply. Again, he did not answer back after this writer telephoned him and sent both text and WhatsApp messages to him regarding the latest protests at the college before press time.
Many have attested to the fact that whenever Prof. Amikuzuno goes on an official journey and he spends less than the amount budgeted for the journey, he returns the amount left to the school for developmental projects. They say an honest principal like him comes along every 100 years and authorities, rather than pushing him to go, should be begging him to stay.
A contractor reportedly once walked into the principal’s office after the commissioning of a project on the college’s campus and offered Prof. Amikuzuno an envelope containing money. In reply, he told the contractor to keep the money for the construction of the next project for the school.
One day, a man from the community, who did not know him, walked into the campus and found him working in wellington boots on the school’s tomato garden. He told Prof. Amikuzuno he wanted to meet the school’s principal.
When Prof. Amikuzuno told the man he was the principal and asked him why he wanted to meet him, the visitor impatiently told him (the principal) to be serious and show him where the principal was. Without saying anything further, Prof. Amikuzuno agreed to take him to the administration block to see the principal.
When they arrived in the principal’s office, Prof. Amikuzuno sat and offered the man a chair. Then, he asked the man to tell him the purpose of his visit. The man spoke half-heartedly, still not sure whom he was talking to.
After listening to him, Prof. Amikuzuno called some of the school’s staff into the office to attend to his concerns.
As the man’s concerns were being addressed by the staff on instructions from the person he initially thought was a labourer, his doubt gradually faded away.
Finally, he realised that the ‘gardener’ he met outside, indeed, was the principal. After the meeting, he left the room speechless. He was struck with awe.
Such is the level of the principal’s dedication and humility, according to the people of the municipality who, together with the protesting students of the college, have declared in public and with one accord: “No Prof. Amikuzuno, No School!”
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
