I’ll continue to do what I do best, damn the consequences – Prof. Gyampo on sex-for-grades

Senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ransford Gyampo says he remains unperturbed by what he describes as attempts by some ‘elements’ to damage his image and reputation.

Mr. Gyampo has been under fire since a video by the BBC Africa Eye allegedly implicated him as having been involved in the sex for grade practice in his capacity as a lecturer at the University of Ghana.

Professor Gyampo was captured persuading an undercover reporter who was posing as a student to meet him at the mall where he was caught on camera making “numerous [alleged] inappropriate demands.”

In the report, he also requested to kiss the female undercover reporter.

Barely hours after the release of the video, he’s already denied his complicity. According to him, there is a plot by some unknown faces who are conniving with reporters from the BBC to embarrass him. Professor Gyampo, a man of high repute in society contends that he would look past their evil plans and give his best much as he can.

“It is just a stone that has hit the thigh of an elephant. I don’t care, once I haven’t done what they said I have done, my conscience is clean. I’ll continue to do what I do best, I’ll teach, treat my students with love and respect, I’ll speak my mind on all national issues, at all times, damn the consequences.

Let people like the current crop of BBC reporters do the kind of things they want to do, I don’t care about them, I care about my nation Ghana,” he said in an interview with Joynews TV.

Prof. Gyampo further expressed surprise about the emergence of the video especially because he says he had prior interactions with the BBC, ones in which the events as captured in the video were explained. They, however, chose to ignore his explanations he said, and go ahead with their original malicious plan.

“It seems to me that there are people behind the scenes trying to pull the strings, trying to embarrass me and all that because if you speak to the BBC, they tend to understand your point of view.

I wrote letters to the BBC about what transpired between me and the student but someway somehow, they decided not to factor anything that I have said into their own reportage, and the people that they were supposed to speak to, we had conversations here, with my assistants."



"It’s like they are bent on pushing a certain angle just to embarrass me. And this won’t be the first time, I’ve received several text messages, and threatening ones, telling me we are going to kill you, we are going to bring you down because you are loudmouthed.

The worse that can happen is for them to try to kill me but me too I don’t fear to die so this one.”

Background

The documentary was commissioned in response to allegations of sexual harassment by lecturers that have hovered over tertiary institutions.

After initial interviews, BBC Africa Eye sent undercover journalists posing as students inside the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana. The lead reporter in the exposé, Kiki Mordi, said she was also a victim of sexual harassment when she was in school.

The BBC said its female reporters were “sexually harassed, propositioned and put under pressure by senior lecturers at the institutions” while they were wearing secret cameras.

The bulk of the excerpt released spent time in the University of Lagos and one of its lecturers alleged attempts to proposition a student seeking admission into the school.

A lecturer at the University’s College of Education, Dr. Paul Kwame Butakor, was also indicted in the investigative piece. He has also denied the claims. It is expected that more lectures will be implicated in the exposé.