Raymond Atuguba
As a policy, we do not editorialise on individuals – a principle we have adhered to for a long time except for a few variations though.
Our preference is to focus on issues and at best institutions. Today’s edition is but one of such variations as we are constrained to respond to the effusions of an otherwise respectable member of the society, a learned one for that matter.
For someone who has become a professor of law, Secretary or Executive Secretary to President John Mahama and the Constitutional Review Committee which cost the taxpayer $6.3 million dollars, his most recent raving and ranting about tribalism shows that he is an incorrigible rabble rouser, the equivalent of an NDC rabid serial caller even though he is not the radio station calling type. His behind the curtain actions are anything but in the interest of the country.
We are pained to observe how this learned gentleman is stepping on the landmine of ethnocentrism with the subtle objective of causing political mischief in the country.
He has pitched camp at the University of Education Winneba (UEW) and the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) claiming in a simplistic and puerile fashion how tribe-correctness is a determinant of whether or not officials stayed in office. In the latter institution, that was the order until a new management and council took over and hence the restoration of orderliness and decency.
As for his erroneous reference to the misuse of the judiciary, we are horrified that this balderdash is originating from a man who by his profession is a stakeholder in the health of the judiciary. That he has resorted to ridiculing it is an indication of how much value he puts to peddling the ethnocentric card. A suggestion about the susceptibility of the bench being misused by the executive should excite all who have a stake in the rule of law.
His smelly project is a means to intimidating and stampeding judges into giving judgment in his clients’ favour failing which he must run down the integrity of the fine gentlemen and ladies of the bench.
We find it interesting his reason for reclusing himself from the cases of the former rector of the GIJ and the UEW former VC- his anger could see him passing unacceptable remarks and which could spoil the cases of his clients.
Without any strong basis, he is struggling to play the tribal card to achieve a negative goal which does not inure to the interest of the country as he raises the picture of the aforementioned tertiary institutions.
This is the nephew of a judge who could not substantiate his claims about judges collecting bribes. Another case which was not backed by any evidence was his poor attempt to paint a picture of Supreme Court judgments being politically biased. As a social scientist and a researcher, he has still not been able to provide the methodology and findings of that study.
When otherwise learned persons who wield respect in society not because of their conduct but because of their academic feats undertake such subtle political projects, we are compelled to query their integrity and ask whether they are worthy of the deference they have enjoyed over the years.
It is so sad that an otherwise brilliant intellectual will engage in such monumental ethical breaches when he is handling cases for his client although he has announced reclusing. The Bar Association should be interested in this.
Our checks at the GIJ show that his chambers lost three interlocutrices! In fact it was his client who sued first!
We know the state of ethnocentrism at the premier journalism tertiary institution before and now.
It is rich and ridiculous to claim the current management and council of the GIJ is on a path of ethnocentric witch hunting; the features of the past order. Today students can vie for SRC positions regardless of which part of the country they hail from.