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The flag bearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has criticised government over the renaming of the University of Development Studies after a UP tradition leader SD Dombo.

John Mahama says if the university was to be renamed after anyone at all, it should be the founder, who is the late former President, Jerry John Rawlings, who used a World Food Programme fund he got as a seed money to commence the university.

Speaking to some students of the University as part of his campaign to the Upper West region Monday, October 14, 2024, the former President indicated that if he wins the December elections, he will go through the processes to restore the name of the University.

“If any name should have been given to this university, that should have been the name of J.J. Rawlings. He won the World Food Price, they gave him US$50,000 price money, that’s what he used as the seed money to start the University of Development Studies (UDS).

“Normally institutions of higher learning are sometimes named after people and sometimes their names connotes the academic career that they are pursuing there. Rawlings declined, he said ‘I want to live in the hearts of men, I don’t want my name to be put on any monument’.

“So, once the founder declined, nobody had any business going to dredge up some ancient person who is the founder of some political tradition and put his name on an institution for which he has absolutely no relationship.

“So 7th January 2025, when we finish Independence Square, we’ll go through the process of restoring the name of this university to simply the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies,” he stated.

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