Alhaji Abdul Rafiu Agboola, a former principal of the Community Health Nursing Training College (CHNTC) at Navrongo in the Upper East Region, is currently being investigated by a committee set up by Ghana’s Ministry of Health (MoH).
Before his transfer to the Community Health Nursing Training College at Winneba in the Central Region took effect months ago, his administration in Navrongo had come under some protests— just as it reportedly had happened when he worked at the Lawra Nursing Training College in the Upper West Region.
It is not clear if the Navrongo protests occasioned his transfer. But it is clear that the protests were prompted by some concerns about the wellbeing of the school’s staff and students.
The protests came mainly from tutors some of whom were fearless enough to sign petitions against him— and even announced plans to convene a news conference against his administration— while he was still in charge of affairs.
One of the concerns had to do with the quality of meals being served to the trainee nurses on campus. Some students complained repeatedly that the meals were not fit for consumption.
Subsequently, a number of the students rejected meals prepared in the school’s soot-blackened kitchen and resorted to either buying food outside the campus or preparing their food themselves.
In 2022, a student filmed a plate of what appears to be a maggot-infested piece of fish she was served at the school. A copy of the video Media Without Borders obtained from a source at the school has a student saying she would have consumed the stuff had her colleague (Abigail) not first checked what was served.
Media Without Borders also intercepted a PDF copy of a letter the school’s vice principal, Ezekiel Apasera, wrote in October, 2021, to the former principal.
The letter courageously highlights a number of issues and concerns which would later become parts of the subjects of the investigation the MoH’s committee is currently conducting against the former principal.
The former principal declined to comment when Media Without Borders contacted him on the issues and concerns in May, 2023.
Alice Agana took over as the new principal at the time students, despite paying development levies to the school’s management, were defecating openly for lack of toilet facilities and borrowing chairs from a nearby Catholic church because they lacked furniture in their classrooms.
The video is embedded below. Viewer discretion is advised. Also find attached a copy of the vice-principal’s letter to the former principal.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org
