Joshua Alabi Is Stealing My Glory...

Founder of the Institute of Professional Studies, now University of Professional Studies, is demanding recognition for his pioneering role in setting up the school.

Nana Opoku-Ampomah says current management of the school are wiping out his name from its history.

"Professor Joshua Alabi [Rector] has taken steps to erase my name from UPS, my brainchild. He has damaged and removed a statue erected for me. I must not be treated as shabbily as he is doing".

Nana Opoku-Ampomah, now 87 years, told Joy News he set up the Institute of Professional Studies in the 1960s, after realising a shortage of higher learning institutions in the country.

He recalled that "when I was an undergraduate at University of Ghana, I conceived the idea of helping students who were unable to gain admission to the university".

But as he says the school gained recognition, the military government then forcibly took over the school when ”a truck full of armed police men, drove me out of the school at gun point".

He was later compensated, but that was only 4m old cedis (GHC400). A further push in 1995 resulted in the payment of another GHC100 Ghana as ex-gratia for setting up IPS.

To date, all he’s received for his singular effort in setting up the tertiary institution is GHC500.

But that’s not really what he wants to crown his efforts. He wants the state to recognise him.

A special congregation of the university recently organised a ceremony to recognise his past students Otumfuor Osei Tutu II, former Chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee Albert Kan Dapaah and the Speaker of Parliament Edward Doe Adjaho, but he was not invited.

Nana Opoku-Ampomah says "since he [Joshua Alabi] assumed office as Rector, he has never invited me to any function of the university".

Meanwhile management of the University of Professional Studies has declined comment on the matter.

Source: Joy News