Ghana Beyond Aid – Higher Educational Development In Bolgatanga

When President of Ghana, Nana Akuffo Addo announced that his administration would construct 88 district hospitals and 6 new regional hospitals in the newly created 6 regions and rehabilitation of Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, Sekondi, many in Ghana thought the president is making promises to score cheap political points.

However, the President’s real motive lies over 800 miles to the North West of the country, Bolgatanga, the second biggest city in the Northern half of the Ghana. During the 2016 electioneering campaign, then candidate Nana Akuffo Addo, made a solemn pledge to the people and chiefs of the Upper West Region of Ghana that should he be elected the President of the Republic, he would ensure Bolgatanga becomes a seat of educational excellence and a great city of learning to rival Timbuktu in Mali. Many in the audience did not fully understand or appreciate the statement made by Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo at the period.

Throughout his adult life, Nana Akuffo Addo has been disturbed by the educational and economic disparities between the north and the south of the country. In a private conversation he had with late Mrs Gladys Asmah, this writer’s maternal grandaunt, Nana Akuffo Addo stated that should he be given the opportunity to lead Ghana one day, the northern half of the country would become his top priority in terms bridging the developmental gap between the north and the south of the country. To show his seriousness, in his second year as President, Ghana’s 62^nd Independence celebrations was held at Tamale, the Capital city of Northern Ghana and acclaimed 3^rd Capital city of the country, after Accra and Kumasi, (due to the make-up of the country, a relic from the colonial era, Ghana is deemed to unofficially have three capital cities, namely Accra, Kumasi and Tamale).

Like the former President, John Mahama, the current NPP government under Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, decided in the first year of his administration to boost health care delivery in the country. Although they have not been able to achieve as much health infrastructural development as the NDC administration did under John Mahama, which many in the party have alluded to, they have pledge to embark on this development should they win a second term.

In November 2018, just under two years into his administration, Nana Akuffo Addo declared the campuses of the University of Development Studies in Wa in the Upper East and Navrongo in the Upper West Regions of Ghana as autonomous. In the Upper West Region, the autonomous new University was called University of Technology and Applied Science and in the Upper East, University of Business and Integrated Development Studies. Although the intention was for each of the 10 regions (now 16) at the time to have at least one public university, however, the President’s intention for the Navrongo University goes far beyond that notion.

On 4^th September 2019, barely a year after giving Upper West Region its first public University, the government of Ghana secured a $20 million concessional funding from Saudi Arabia to expand Bolgatanga Regional Hospital, perhaps the only regional hospital in the country which is not a teaching hospital but with all facilities as such.

On April 2, 2020, the Ghanaian Parliament amended the Technical Universities Act 922 to convert Bolgatanga and Wa Polytechnics to technical universities, after being left out in the first phase of the polytechnics which were converted into technical universities under the NDC administration.

Professor Erasmus Alnaa, Vice Chancellor of Bolgatanga Technical University, in an interview after the elevation stated that the university would admit more students to double the student population from the current 1,500 to 3,000 students for the 2020/2021 academic year (free SHS students). He further stated that the school authorities are embarking on major renovation of existing structures and constructions of new lecture halls, staff accommodations, student halls of residence etc to give meaning to the conversion and the new status of Bolgatanga Technical University.

On May 2, 2020, in an interview he granted to the media in Bolgatanga, Professor Albert Luguterah, the Pro vice chancellor of University for Technology and Applied Science, announced that the university would soon start training medical doctors and other allied health professionals once it is inaugurated and emphasised that the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital have the medical facility which is well equipped and ready to train doctors. Professor LUGUTERAH reiterated the President’s agenda of Ghana Beyond Aid when he said, “the public must see the university as an institute for the whole country and not only one particular region, the aim is to build a better and prosperous Ghana”.

According to Professor Luguterah, once the medical school is established at the University of Technology and Applied Science, Bolgatanga Regional Hospital would be elevated into a Teaching Hospital since all the facilities are already in place for a teaching hospital. Already Bolgatanga Regional Hospital is patronised by clients from Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

Nana Akuffo Addo is strategically positioning Bolgatanga, not only to rival Tamale but to achieve the status of a seat of cultural and educational excellence in Northern Ghana, which fits in well with his Ghana and Africa Beyond Aid agenda.

Whilst it took 3 presidents, namely Rawlings, Kuffuor and Mahama to put Tamale, Ghana’s third Capital city on the world map, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo is single handily pushing Bolgatanga and Wa to become the next growth poles in Ghana.

In this regard, the NPP administration under Nana Akuffo Addo have place much emphasis on road and rail road link from the Ghanaian ports of Tema and Takoradi to Burkina Faso under the Norther Corridor Transit and Transport Agreement of AfDB Regional Integration. This agreement involves constructing a first-class motorway and railroad joining all the countries in Africa. In Ghana already the northern roads that would link to Burkina Faso are near completion while the first phase of the railway is under construction in the southern part of country.

Nana Addo Dankwa’s ambition of transforming his country, some argue, may rival the country’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, founder and father of Ghana.

This writer strongly believes that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo’s Presidential Library would be built at University of Technology and Applied Science (UTAS) in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region and not at the Kyebi campus of University of Sustainable, Environmental Studies and Applied Research. Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo’s educational achievement (Free SHS and educational development in Upper West and East Regions) would be his lasting legacy in his homeland of Ghana.

Peter N Jeffrey

Houston, Texas.