Henry Ayeng, the St. Bernadette’s Technical Institute teacher who sustained multiple wounds and trauma from an alleged police brutality in the Upper East Region, is not leaving the fight for justice on the matter to the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) alone.
While his fellow GNAT members are calling for the perpetrators to be brought to book, the Health teacher has also lodged a personal petition with the Municipal Education Oversight Committee (MEOC) in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, demanding investigations into a serial riot that has kept the school in the headlines in recent times.
Ayeng also revealed in the 3-page petition the names of the three students who were allegedly arrested with him at his bungalow on the school’s campus on Sunday, 14 May 2023, handcuffed and tortured.
And he reiterated in the written petition his earlier oral assertion that the school’s management turned its back on him all through the time his human rights were allegedly being abused at the district police station in Navrongo.
“The three students who were arrested in my bungalow are Abagna Jonathan, Ateng Sylvester and Abayilinaam Sampson. These male students were those who helped convey the girls who fainted to my bungalow while the clash between the students and the police was going on. We were all sent to the police station and brutally assaulted on that fateful day. This assault left a lot of bruises all over my body with lifelong injuries.
“Sir, though I was working for the school and by extension TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) Services as a Health Master and Assistant Senior Housemaster before the police mercilessly brutalized me, the School Authorities left me to my [fate] to battle it up with the Police Service alone in court,” he said.
He added: “While I was arrested, my family members informed the school immediately, but they neither showed up at the police station nor at the court, and did not even make any attempt to get me out from the cells. The school bus was rather released by the school to the police to take me from Navrongo to a Circuit Court in Bolgatanga for prosecution.”
Established under the Ghana Education Service Act 1995 (Act 506) and maintained in Education Act 2008 (Act 778), MEOC is mandated to interact with stakeholders in education to promote quality education in every local government area nationwide.
The Kassena-Nankana Municipal Chief Executive, Joseph Adongo, who doubles as the MEOC Chairman for the municipality in which the school is situated, confirmed receipt of the “traumatised” teacher’s petition in an interview with Media Without Borders on Wednesday.
“I received the letter yesterday, but I had to leave for a meeting in Bolgatanga. It is when I get to the office today we will know what next steps to take. I read what was written to GNAT and copied to us. From what I saw, if that is true, I would say it is unacceptable. But we can’t tell what really happened,” he remarked when asked for comments on the reported brutality.
Read below a copy of the 3-page petition:
Also watch below a video of Henry Ayeng and some students narrating how they were tortured:
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
