The Tertiary Education Students’ Confederacy (TESCON) of the NPP and the Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN) of the NDC have called on the authorities of the University of Ghana to as a matter of urgency, reverse the directive placing a virtual ban on political activities within University of Ghana campuses. TESCON and TEIN have also called for “a stakeholders’ meeting of Party representatives, the Students’ Representatives Council, Parliamentary Candidates concerned and functionaries of the various Political Parties, to find ways of addressing the concerns of the University management, based on which it brought forth this directive”. The two bodies issued a joint statement on Thursday claiming, “we believe that though, the University may have genuine and altruistic motives for issuing this directive, it is most undemocratic and highly misplaced”. “We are of the strongest conviction that it would have been more democratic, appropriate and worthwhile for the management of the University to have engaged in proper consultations with the various Party representatives in the University, Parliamentary Candidates contesting in constituencies which include the University of Ghana campuses and the Students’ Representative Council, so that we as stakeholders could have come to an amicable arrangement on how the security of students as well as the academic sanctity of students could have been preserved in the run up to the December elections”, the statement suggested. The statement described the policy as “most frustrating”, noting that the University of Ghana with numerous campuses is very significant in terms of the numbers, almost of who are potential voters. “Again, the point must be made that such directives go a long way to highlight the unfortunate mentality that Politics is inevitably associated with violence and unrests, something intellectuals like us must strive to erode”, they stressed. TESCON and TEIN therefore see the development as an “attempt by the University to gag the activities of political parties and politicians on campus”. According to them, it is very strange especially as the University is seeking to say that political activities on campuses are recipes for chaos and violence. “One would obviously want to know if political activities in the past such as rallies have had the consequence, the University management want the world to believe and if not, what the basis of the directive is then”. “If anything, we have known violence to be associated more with activities such as Hall week celebrations, student elections, sporting activities etc. so one wonders why the University did not proceed to ban these activities in the first place or place equal bans on them as they have sought to do with partisan political activities”. The campus wings of the NPP and NDC have therefore served notice of using all available means to press home their demand should their plea fail.