The Majority Leader of Parliament, Mahama Ayariga, has assured that the bills seeking to revert the names of some campuses of the University for Development Studies (UDS) will be passed, regardless of objections from the Minority in Parliament.
According to him, the Majority has the numbers and is determined to push the bills through the House, insisting that the decision to reverse the names was taken long ago.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament on December 19, Mahama Ayariga said resistance from members of the Minority would not stop the process.
“I can assure you. You may resist as you can, but the names will be changed today. No matter what it will take to change the names, we’ll do it and we’ll change the names today.”
“The decision to change the names took place long ago. There has been a delay in getting the bills to come here. Once the bills are here, I’m 100% sure I have the numbers.”
In August 2019, two major satellite campuses of UDS were granted autonomy and renamed after political figures.
The Wa Campus was renamed the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) under Act 1001, while the Navrongo Campus became the C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS) under Act 1000.
In October 2025, the government announced a directive to reverse those changes and restore the campuses to their original identities.
As of December 19, 2025, the relevant bills had been read before Parliament for a second time.
The bills include the S.D. Dombo University of Business and Integrated Studies Bill, 2025, which seeks to delete “S.D. Dombo” from the institution’s name; the C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences Bill, 2025, which seeks to delete “C.K. Tedam”; and the Akenten Appiah-Menka University for Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development Bill, 2025, which also seeks to remove “Akenten Appiah-Menka” from the university’s title.
The Majority leader further argued that the original founder of UDS, the late former President Jerry John Rawlings, had declined attempts to name the university after him, a position he said should have guided later decisions.
“Then you come, you haven’t built a university for the Northern people. Then you wake up one early morning and decide that you’re going to change it. One midnight, when we were all asleep you gave instructions that the name should be changed to somebody that we all know the person’s political traditional allegiance.”
Both C.K. Tedam and S.D. Dombo are widely recognised as leading figures in the Danquah-Dombo-Busia political tradition, which forms the ideological foundation of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
According to the Majority Leader, the renaming exercise in 2019 lacked consultation with the people of the north.
“If you go and conduct polls in the north, all the people will tell you that reverse the name to what it was. Because you did not consult the Northern people when you were changing the name.”
