By Kwesi Yankah
I gave him a call last Wednesday, but only got a feeble response. As it turned out, Alhaji Sidik Ahmed had been hospitalized and only managed to receive my call. Was he on his way to his maker? I calmly assured him I would pay him a visit … but it was too late the day after; news of his tragic departure was all over the airwaves.
Sidik Ahmed and University of Ghana as a whole, played a pivotal role freeing the airwaves on the eve of Ghana’s 4th Republic. Hand in hand with Alhaji we started Radio Univers in the early 1990s on the initiative of Vice Chancellor George Benneh. We were Benneh’s foot soldiers: I, the ubiquitous Dean of Students, and Alhaji as Station manager. After Benneh came another great radio enthusiast Vice Chancellor Addae-Mensah.
Using the School of Communication Studies as our technical base, the SRC, and student body as the volunteer force, we prodded on, tripped, fumbled, but always rose to resume the struggle. Fair weather however soon returned to wipe our tears.
Over a period of twenty-five years, life moved on; various streams of students passed through our experimental Univers; changing scenes of management and staff passed with fond memories.
One thing however remained constant. Alhaji Sidik Ahmed: the corner stone: humble, diligent, affable, loyal, principled. Sidik declined several offers to leave Univers for greener radio; but prosperity would not move him. He stayed put, even when I had moved on to eventually become Pro-Vice Chancellor nearly 15 years thereafter. 2009, we nearly lost Alhaji to a serious ailment while he was doing his doctorate in South Africa, which required surgery. Legon’s Vice Chancellor, Tagoe, did not abandon him. The university’s modest assistance was topped by a philanthropist, which enabled him to receive specialist medical attention in South Africa. Later that year, Vice Chancellor Cliff Tagoe, directed me to follow up on Alhaji and check his progress.
Together with the Senior Medical Officer, Dr Phina Blankson, we visited Alhaji at a hospital in Johannesburg and found him doing well. Alhaji was still cheerful, his silky voice unscathed.
Our most recent encounter was 2025 on the 30th anniversary of Radio Univers when the University held court at the base of the Ivory Tower, and honored the Man who braved the storm and became the Voice of Legon.
Find below excerpts of my reminiscences at Radio Univers @30, even as I bid farewell to a lost jewel.
Radio Univers @30. The story draws listening ears: an adventure that walks you back to the genesis of democratic radio. I pick on it today because I & Alhaji Sidik were pivotal players who staked it out with student heroes to berth Ghana’s 4th Republic.
Thanks to the visionary vice chancellors of University of Ghana: George Benneh, followed by Ivan Addae Mensah. We were their foot soldiers: Kwesi Yankah, Legon’s ubiquitous dean of students/chair of the foundation management board; and my energetic buddy Alhaji Sidik Ahmed, station manager.
Late April 2025 was earmarked to celebrate Radio Univers; and we proudly did so at the feet of Ghana’s number One Ivory Tower, reminiscing how far interactive FM has come after years of fiddling with studio toys. We were ‘school children’ in the early 1990s, playing games in the Legon studios led by Alhaji Sidik, but unwittingly making history. That was the early stirrings of FM broadcasting taking over from short wave radio mustered by GBC 1, and GBC 2. Quietly and gingerly, we hobbled along Ghana’s constitutional democracy which was on life support. Almost at the same time, Wereko Brobbey’s Radio Eye had quietly started but was shut down by Government, and their equipment seized. For the records, KNUST and UCC students using student-made transmitters were informally operating in their respective neighborhoods.
While the name ‘Radio Universe’ I coined had been unanimously accepted, Aban Korahen a student volunteer, raised a point of order. ‘Sir, the name you have coined for the station is great; but with all due respect, let’s drop the letter ‘e’ at the end of ‘Universe;’ and make it ‘Univers,’ for purposes of unique branding.’ Brilliant! We applauded and submitted to the young brain; the name and spelling soon stuck and sank into history. We dropped our original generic name, ‘Voice of Legon,’ in 1994 after our Vice Chancellor Benneh had bought for us a 400 watt radio transmitter.
We are hereby inciting readers to be angry; for the frequency we were originally given by the Frequency Allocation Board, was annoyingly hijacked by JOY FM while we were playing in the sand. FM 99.7 which has since been identified with JOY was the ideal, being centrally positioned on the radio wavelength. We ended up with the least favorable frequency FM 105.7, almost at the last end of the dial. The turtle that created the river now lodged at the river’s bank. But we have since allowed bygones to flee, since JOY later atoned by giving big jobs to our little heroes.
A few memorable incidents still linger from our foundation days. First was my early fundraising efforts in buying rudimentary studio equipment ahead of the new set of broadcast equipment. Ghanaians on the east coast of USA got excited learning of the Legon initiatives, and cooperated when on a fellowship at Northwestern University I tried to raise funds. In a matter of three weeks, contributions trickling reached almost $2000. With this huge goodwill, I bought basic studio equipment and brought these over as excess luggage. This was to support a 20 watts mono transmitter gifted by UNESCO.
But our new transmitter almost put us in trouble. Our station had been given license to operate within limits up to Tetteh Quarshie Circle, less than ten kilometers radius. When we got a bigger transmitter however, we got excited and brazenly began broadcasting to areas beyond limits, and we felt proud to be heard in parts of the Central and Volta regions. One morning, we got unusual visitors from the National Communications Authority that came and ordered us to stop operations, since we were violating the laid down terms for experimental broadcasting, which also prohibited us from broadcasting beyond 9 pm. The interference inflamed passions among a concerned student body, that was championing the birth of press freedom. Students resolved to resist, and quietly dared anybody to come from Government and halt the operations of Radio Univers since we were in a constitutional era, where no formal permission was needed to broadcast or start a radio station. The Vandals from Commonwealth Hall led the crusade and took turns to collectively keep vigil around the Radio station over a week, until the footsteps of NCA receded in the distance.
The authorities were irked by something else. In 1995, when the University of Ghana was seeking a permanent license to operate the station, an inspection team from Government expressed worry about the absence of security on the station’s premises. It was indeed feared that, any adventurer could burst into the studio and announce a coup d’etat. The inspection team appeared worried when we said, the University was unlikely to go beyond the routine campus security apparatus to protect the radio station. If the Rawlings Government just emerging from a revolution was jittery, it was perhaps because, the nation had gotten used to a single state-owned radio station, GBC, which could be whimsically taken over by any adventurist, to announce a military take-over. Legon stuck to its guns and refused to turn the station into a security zone.
One major problem was the know-how to handle our new technical equipment. When we had the least technical hitch, the most we could do was to pick up the phone, and place a long distance call to Mr. Roy Parson the manufacturer in London; Roy would give us word for word instructions on how to fix the problem. Sometimes, a break in transmission was from a mere volume control switch. When the going was tough, and there was nowhere to turn, the manufacturer would send down his assistant by the next available flight. His assistant called Tony, was an 18 year old polytechnic student. Tony would fix the issue in 15 minutes and depart by the next available plane!
That was Baby Univers led by Alhaji Sidik who is now no more.
Farewell, Alhaji. You fought a good fight, and brought Ghana radio this far. .
May your soul rest in perfect peace!
kyankah@ashesi.edu.gh
