Former Member of Parliament (MP) for Zebilla Constituency John Akparibo Ndebugre has expressed regrets in troubling Ignatius Kutu Acheampong’s military government as a student leader.
He revealed that he was among the hard nuts at the University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in view of the fact he was a leader of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) and became a veritable pain in the neck of the regime that ruled from 13 January 1972 to 5 July 1978, when it was deposed in a palace coup.
Speaking on a local radio station monitored by MyNewsGh.com, he disclosed that “Some people will come and do well when president Kufuor came he worked well. I was disturbing Acheampong, I was then the NUGS secretary at KNUST when I was studying engineering there. When they talk of Criminals in school, we started it, we showed bad behaviour against the then government.
“When Acheampong came to Kumasi I organized buses to rebel against him, when the students came out it was fire, it wasn’t easy in Kumasi that day and they nearly killed me.”
According to him, the former military leader was a good man contrary to perceptions held by a section of Ghanaians.
“Acheampong was good, he was a simple person. These days, I normally think of it and I say how? What we were doing to the man was not the best. Acheampong did well for Ghana, he was able to let us farm and feed on our own produce, we were not buying rice outside we were eating Ghana rice then.
“If anybody said colonialism is good then he needs to read and be told about the white and how Nkrumah fought them,” he added.
