The leadership of the Tertiary Students Confederacy of the New Patriotic Party (TESCON-NPP) has rescinded its decision to suspend all activities following their disenfranchisement at the just-ended annual delegates’ conference of the party.
The decision comes after a meeting between some executives of TESCON and the newly-elected youth organiser of the NPP, Salam Mustapha, on Tuesday.
Speaking in interview on Asaase Radio yesterday, Abel Nti Fordjour, TESCON UCC steering committee chairperson, said they felt rejected after the disenfranchisement.
“I think the youth organiser tried to speak with us, and we have drawn conclusions. We said we would not be having programmes and other things on campuses. But per our conversation with him and other national executives … we have rescinded our decision. We will have programmes, but we are still building a healthy consensus,” he said.
On Monday July 18,2022, TESCON-NPP announced its decision to suspend all activities on the various campuses in the country.
The decision followed an injunction that barred the 291 presidents of the various TESCON branches from casting their votes in the just ended NPP national delegates’ conference.
According to the party, the injunction was received on Friday evening, and it was late in relaying the message to the group. But the TESCON delegates refused to accept the excuse.
Mean treatment
In a statement jointly released by the 291 TESCON presidents, the Confederacy observed that there was careful orchestration to exclude TESCON from the event.
“Allocation of stands were made for all delegates, with the exception of TESCON, at Accra Sports Stadium, which clearly indicates that the party did not factor us and never valued us in the planning of the whole event,” the statement said.
Portions of the statement had claimed that the TESCON delegates lodged at Anagkazo in the Eastern Region without allocation of rooms to delegates from the Greater Accra Region.
“They slept outside and others in cars until the next morning for us to come to the stadium and be told an injunction had been placed on TESCON and, for that matter, we will not be allowed to vote.
“Delegates from the Ashanti Region were given 45 accreditations instead of 174 accreditations for the Presidents, Nasara Coordinators and the Women Commissioners (58 each), and with Greater Accra, 23 accreditations were given instead of 144, and this is similar to all the other regions,” they said in the statement.
According to them, the treatment meted out to them was very mean, and showed that the leadership of the NPP did not have the interest of TESCON at heart.