Akufo-Addo and Lee Kwan Yew were law mates - Ayikoi Otoo

Former Attorney General Nii Ayikoi Otoo has said there is information suggesting that the 2012 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was called to the bar the same year former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew was.

Nii Ayikoi Otoo told Radio XYZ’s Current Affairs Programme, The Analyst on Saturday May 4, 2013 that: “There is no doubt at all that Nana Akufo-Addo was called to the Bar in England; People have published it even on Facebook and there was one guy who said when he checked, he even realized that he was called to the bar together with Lee Kwan Yew, the same year that he was called to the bar”.

Former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Francis Yaonasu Kpegah, filed a writ against Nana Akufo-Addo at the Fast Track Division of the Accra High Court on March 19, 2013, challenging the former presidential candidate’s law credentials.

Justice Kpegah claimed Nana Akufo-Addo was holding himself out as a lawyer, when evidence available to him indicates that he was never called to the Ghana Bar.

He alleged that Nana Akufo-Addo was impersonating one W.A.D Akufo-Addo.

The retired Judge, in his statement of claim, also accused former President John Agyekum Kufuor of complicity for appointing Akufo-Addo as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice - a decision which he said, violates the 1992 constitution.

The court dismissed the case on Thursday May 2, 2013 following an application by Nana Akufo-Addo’s lawyers that the writ be struck out on grounds that it was scandalous, frivolous, and abuse of the court process.

According to the Court, the defendant’s evidence vis-a-vis the plaintiff’s failure to file an affidavit in opposition justified a dismissal of the case.

The court said based on the affidavit evidence placed before it, Nana Akufo-Addo was the same person as W.A.D. Akufo-Addo who was called to the Utter Bar of the Middle Temple in 1971 and subsequently admitted and called on the Roll of lawyers in Ghana by the General Legal Council.