SILENCE AND RHETORIC – THE DEARTH OF RADICAL VOICES

Legon is beset with innumerable problems. Vile and pernicious – at times capricious, now concealed or cloaked with the dark garment of academia, of superficiality. At times overt, but the public is left out. Its pronouncements and concern about the state of the premier university is neglected, considered dangerous generalizations and the debilitating problems under discussion is squashed. The academic board will deal with it in limbo. That ends the story. Most of the strange and inimical revelations that emerge from the sanctum sanatoria of the premier university is quickly refuted by the authorities and the fears of the public allayed by soothing words and unfounded and satiric venom unleashed on the people concerned with the ruptured story. It’s a myth they have concocted to tarnish the good image of the premier university. It is the enemies of the institution. Legon is a sanctimonious institution. Such revelations in public has the potential of damaging the hard worn reputation of the institution. It is filled with timbers and calibers. Intellectuals, academics and educationists. Who are you from the precincts of the lay man to comments on the institution run by the custodians of knowledge?

With this begins the myth of the infallibility of legon. The flawless towers of learning. The few students who wouldn’t accept the theory of the impeccable nature of the institution and will speak out loud and clear - at times their arguments lack coherence they are unable to articulate their views well. They sound unconvincing. Their arguments lack the vicissitudes of rhetoric and dialectics and at times home made logic to resist the seductive myths that it encounters.

They are mere students. That is the justification. Yet the weapons of the authorities that make them potent is what they are clamoring for. That is the reason for their very presence on campus. It shows how susceptible and compromising they are. At times, when they take an initiative, they soil the issue totally as mostly the only thing they resort to as their weapon is unwarranted and unjustifiable violence, which does not in any way address the issues at hand but worsen it.

So to rely on students to address problems of the university is not only dangerous and precarious, but grossly ineffective and tantamount to creating chaos from order.

There are more serious and reliable personalities on campus like the lecturers who can present some of the problems of the premier university in a cogent realistic manner and come to terms with the ones that can be met as a matter of urgency. Yet they all fall under the umbrella of students. Mediocrity and hesitancy, lack of intellectual courage. The only difference is that they don’t resort to unwarranted and unjustifiable violence and uttering dangerous and destructive tirades which may jeopardize their educational career or soil the reputation of the university. They become the silent ones. They die. They languish because they indulge in intellectual languor.

There are brilliant and exceptional academicians who are privy to some of the pressing problems of legon ritualized into unmovable altars. They agitate to let the old reverent masters know that times are changing and that legon is lagging behind. Eventually they are cowed by the unchallengeable potency of the university of Ghana. What they do is to hide behind unreliable and clumsy and dishonest journalists to articulates their grievances in an unreliable newspaper which in effect render their efforts useless and baseless.

As members of the institution, they are aware of the rules and the procedures, yet they resort to unconventional means which yields no fruits in their bid to help arrest some of the serious problems of the institution.

Truth is legon has to embark on a serious readjustment program. The institution needs to be restructured to meet modern standards. The lack of modern facilities to render services to students make very difficult and tough for students. One thing that happens on campus that attest to the fact that all the students one way or the other are burdened by the situation prevailing on campus is how they readily supports and corroborates any action that may be directed towards addressing a situation.

Why the silence? When the silence continues unbroken, the situation may get worse and the repercussions wouldn’t be felt only on campus but its dreadful consequences will ripple within the whole nation.