Prof. Ransford Gyampo and Dr. Domfeh
Some allegations will follow the persons against whom they were made for a long time in their lives unless they are addressed exhaustively.
A few days ago, a nasty spectacle was played out in Media General’s TV3 studio when two academicians locked horns during a discourse.
The brawl has since triggered public discourses in town. The two personalities in the eye of the storm are academicians who have taught many students over the years. These students should be ashamed of what happened, especially the rekindling of the sex-for-grade allegations which has comfortably found space in the front burners of public discourse after a lull.
The two traded invectives and, in the end, one of them was too graphic in his verbal attack that his opponent Prof. Ransford Gyampo has threatened legal action.
How we wish sleeping dogs were allowed to lie; that however is not to be because feathers have been ruffled.
Many could not but recall the aftermath of the BBC Eye sex-for-grade documentary following the release of the episode and the attendant brouhaha.
It was such an embarrassing documentary which impugned on the reputation of Ghana’s impeccable academic reputation. Many like us, at the time, demanded the truth about what really happened.
Was Prof. Gyampo exonerated following the panel which probed the allegation? It is this which has attracted the attention of many who have showed excessive interest in the matter following the studio brawl recently.
We wonder whether it would not be in the interest of the Prof. and the University of Ghana if another probe with broader terms of reference is empanelled so this matter can be laid to rest, especially since some female past students claim to be victims of ‘violent kisses.’
It would be recalled that the premier university appropriately empanelled a six-member fact-finding committee headed by Justice Vida Akoto Bamfo, a retired Supreme Court judge to probe the BBC documentary.
The presentation of Prof. Gyampo openly demanding sex for grades, which was the crux of the documentary, was rejected by the committee. Some clauses of the institution’s sexual harassment policy could not be extended under the circumstances to the BBC undercover female reporter, who was not a student of the institution.
For some, this passes for an exoneration, but for others, since certain actions were taken against Prof. Gyampo, exoneration could not have taken place.
This school of thought maintains that since some consequences were exacted on Prof. Gyampo, he could not have been exonerated outright.
He was for instance suspended for six months without pay and had to undergo mandatory counseling on sexual misconduct and placed on a specified period of monitoring.
It behooves the University of Ghana to issue a statement on the subject or even revisit the issue through a committee of enquiry with broader terms of reference. There should be a closure to the brouhaha. The US Epstein case comes to mind.