Open letter to the Minister for Health, Honorable Kwaku Agyemang-Manu

Dear Honourable Kwaku Agyemang-Manu,

I am Rockson Adofo, a native of Ghana, and to be precise, the proud son of Kumawu/Juaben-Asiampa in the Ashanti region. I reside in London. However, I have cultivated an interest in the political activities of Ghana and do actively directly or indirectly participate in such activities as far as I am capable of, and my services needed by whomever.

I have always been striving to seek the collective interests of Ghanaians, especially, the poor and the needy in the society who are oftentimes regarded with scorn by most of our politicians and the well off. Subsequently, I have come to be seen among some Ghanaians as the defender of the defenseless or the voice of the voiceless.

In order not to bore you with any lengthy stories that may take out the essence of my today’s urgent letter to you, I will convey to your attention the following.

There are about a hundred and sixty-eight students in the Nursing and Midwifery Training College in Ashanti Mampong whose careers risk never being realized. This is a result of the malicious decision taken against them by the principal of the school, Mrs. Gifty Helena Dwamena Amoah.

When their plight came to my knowledge, I rang to interview some of the affected students.

Again, I made it a duty to call on some of the students when I went to Mampong on Saturday, 12th March 2022, to gather more information, facts, and credible evidence from them. I had desired to contact the principal while I was in Ghana and Mampong on that day but was told she was not available on campus that day.

From the evidence I gathered, almost all the students are victims of deliberate official academic discrimination, victimization, and demonstration of shameful incompetence by the principal of the school, acting in collusion with the Academic Officer, Mr. Paul Antiafere, and the Member of Parliament for Mampong Constituency who doubles as the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Honourable Kwaku Ampratwum Sarpong.

The students are understood to have been allowed to proceed to their next higher classes or levels without sitting for their final year or semester examinations. This was due to the devastating or fatally infectious Covid-19 pandemic and how to contain its spread hence students were not allowed to physically attend classes. Subsequently, they were allowed not to sit for end-of-year or semester examinations.

Letting students proceed or be promoted to their next higher class without sitting for an end-of-year examination during the Covid-19 pandemic was not unique to Mampong Nursing and Midwifery Training College or Ghana but many countries, especially, the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, for example, final year students were permitted by the government and the national examination board to be assessed and awarded grades by their class teachers using their academic work and previous mock examinations as are known to their individual class or subject teachers. These grades awarded to them by their class or subject teachers without sitting for final year examinations were accepted for admissions of sixth formers into the British Universities.

Why is the principal after promoting the students in question, and the students performing better in the semester exams of their higher classes, decided to sack or demote them? Does it make sense?

From my investigations, most of the students have been sacked by the principal but without officially notifying them or their parents. They are neither allowed on campus, in nor dining hall, nor in classes. They are simply lodging in privately rented student hostels in Mampong.

Honorable Kwaku Ampratwunm Sarpong is established to be instrumental in if not the architect of, the reprehensible decision taken against the affected students. Therefore, for you, the Sector Health Minister, to somehow accept his version of events or findings presented to you does beat my mind. For, your acceptance of such findings, if any, will not only cause the continuous suffering of the students to culminate in the destruction of their career but may not look good on your credibility.

For Honourable Kwaku Ampratwum Sarpong to inform you of the outcome of his meeting with the principal of the school and the Board of Governors, sitting on the case affecting the students, and for you to accept it as final, will fly in the face of the underlying legal requirement.

“In the absence of an impartial judge, men are prone to respond to interpersonal wrongdoing with vengeance, meting out punishments that are disproportionate to the offense. A principle spanning both Roman law and English common law, nemo iudex in causa sua ("no man should be a judge in his own case") - John Locke.

I pray you expeditiously reconstitute an independent panel without Honourable Kwaku Ampratwum Sarpong, a known saboteur of the students, to look into the students’ case as time is running against them.

I understand the school has arranged for the entire non-affected students of the school to sit for exams on the 26th of April 2022. Does it look fair on the affected students who by the incompetence, malevolence, and discrimination of the principal and her colluders, stand the unfortunate chance of not taking part in, or sitting for, the exams?

Time is of the essence. Their situation is becoming critical with each passing tick-tock sound of the clock.