‘Name UG After JB Danquah’

Professor Kodwo Ewusi, Dean of Graduate Studies at the Methodist University College, has called on government to rename the University of Ghana (UG), Legon, after Dr. Joseph Boakye (JB) Danquah.

He proposed UG should be called JB Danquah University of Ghana because of the late statesman’s immense contribution to the establishment of Ghana’s premier university.

Speaking at the 48th JB Danquah memorial lectures at the British Council in Accra on Monday, Prof. Ewusi, who is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (FGA), stated that Dr. Danquah put up strong arguments which persuaded the then British government to accept the majority report in establishing UG in 1984.

“Among his illustrious accomplishments was his unyielding fight to help with the establishment of the university here in Ghana in 1948. The British government accepted a minority report that they should not establish universities in all the West African States but they should establish only one university in Nigeria. Against this, Dr Danquah argued in the legislature, he also argued in seminars. Finally, the British government was persuaded to accept the majority report to establish the University of Ghana. But let me suggest here now that for this contribution, I think that the university of Ghana should indeed be called JB Danquah University of Ghana,” Prof. Ewusi recounted.

The Memorial Lecture Series was instituted in 1968 in memory of Dr. JB Danquah, who died in detention in February 1965, fighting for freedom in all its manifestations, during the reign of Ghana’s first president, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

It is an annual event held to contribute actively to the development of Ghana and Africa generally by examining and addressing critical issues of development.

This year’s memorial lecture, which was under the theme, ‘Human Capital and Economic Growth in Ghana,’ brought together personalities like Nana Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party; Prof. Agyeman Badu Akosa, a leading member of the Convention People’s Party and Prof. Akilakpa Sawyer, the President of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, among others.