Father of the one of the students with dreadlocks who were turned down by Achimota School has narrated how the school authorities told him they have won cases in court against people like him so they are ready to meet him in court.
Ras Aswad Nkrabea’s son was refused entry into Achimota School even though the Computer Placement System put him in that school.
The school insisted that it was against their rules for students to have dreadlocks on campus so he should take off the dreadlocks before returning to school.
Ras Nkrabea put the matter out on social media and it has since gone viral and triggered a huge national debate on the conflict between constitutionally mandated individual rights versus institutional rules and regulations.
Ras Nkrabea told the host of Opposing Views on MX24, Kwabena Kyenkyenhene Boateng that his wife informed him about the school’s directive to the her to ensure the boy took off his dreadlocks before returning to the school.
“I then asked to speak with a higher authority and I was directed to the Assistant Headmaster who repeated the same thing to me and when I asked why, he told me some of my people have taken them to court in the past and the school won, so if I want to go to court I am free,” he said.
Ras Nkrabea said the response of the school reminded of apartheid in South Africa – how the white people had separate developments for various kinds of people and treated the blacks with extreme discrimination.
Discrimination
He said this is just one of many times he and his family had had to deal with discrimination because of their dreadlocks.
Citing an example, he said “I was turned away once at an airport in Antigua – they said people with dreadlocks are not allowed into their country so they put me on the next flight back home.”
Ras Nkrabea said on that occasion he had to defend himself openly because wearing dreadlocks represents freedom from colonial rule and many people who still keep rules handed down to them by the colonial master are uncomfortable with conscious people like him.
He is worried that in this day and age, Africans in Africa continue to use colonial rules against fellow Africans.
In his view, the constitution is on their side and what the school has done violates their constitutional rights, a position that his held by a number of institutions such as Child Rights International and Africa Education Watch, and indeed several other individual Ghanaians.
According to Ras Nkrabea, he takes his rights very seriously, so if his son is not allowed in Achimota School he will surely go to court and defend his rights.
Source: ABCNewsGh
