Akufo-Addo and the Missing Link

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Monday, April 1, 2013

Folks, the NPP’s Akufo-Addo last Friday issued a statement from his “rat hole” to wish Ghanaians a happy Easter celebration. He told his supporters that he was in “high spirits” and urged them too to be so.

High Spirits while still praying and fasting for God’s intervention so the 9 Supreme Court judges will nullify over 4 million votes to dislodge President Mahama from the seat of government for him to occupy?

High spirits while Justice Kpegah is at his tail with the make-or-break suit on impersonation and daring him to come out of his “rat hole” to file his response to the “request to admit facts” and meet him in court?

Those must be really high spirits of a kind, indeed; Akufo-Addo must have a tough skin to be in “high spirits” despite all that is happening. I admire him for that.

Our probing of the issues raised by Justice Kpegah’s suit, however, continues because we want to plot the timeline of Akufo-Addo’s rise to fame, which is now being threatened by Justice Kpegah’s legal onslaught.

In response to the nagging question on where Akufo-Addo was between 1967 and July 1971 when he surfaced as being called to the English Bar (Middle Temple), one of his sympathizers (maybe, an apologist or admirer) said a lot. Here is part of it, which sets us up for further discussion of the missing link in Akufo-Addo’s biography. I reproduce the response in its entirety, picking each in its stride for comment:

1. “In 1961, Akufo-Addo was enrolled at Lancing College in Sussex, the UK, and 1971 for Inns of Court School of Law, now City Law School London, which is one of the seven schools of City University in the City of London.”

MY COMMENT:

There is no doubt that Akufo-Addo was admitted at Lancing College and lived in Field’s house in 1961 and had his “O” and “A” level education there. We don’t know the name he went by within this period (whether W.A.D. Akufo Addo/W.A.D. akufo Addo or Nana Addo Danquah/Dankwa Akufo Addo (Akufo-Addo). Many variants of his name now!!

What we don’t know is whether he entered Inns of Court Law School in 1971 and completed it that same year to merit being called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971.

2. “Now the course that Akufo-Addo studied, let me give you bit of background of the Inns of Court School of Law. It has two ways of training lawyers. Firstly, you can be trained as a lawyer by three-year undergraduate Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programme, a two-year Graduate Entry LLB degree programme, a one-year Masters of Law (LLM) and the Graduate Diploma in Law (also known as the Common Professional Examination) or

MY COMMENT

We can see clearly how this Akufo-Addo apologist has cut corners (“Now the course that Akufo-Addo studied, let me give you bit of background of the Inns of Court School of Law…”). We thought he was going to tell us the course(s) that Akufo-Addo read there. We know he had third class in economics at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1967. But we don’t know what he read where to become what.

3. “Opting for the Bar Professional Training Course (formerly the Bar Vocational Course) for intending barristers and the Legal Practice Course for intending solicitors which non-law graduates can enter. Nana Addo opted for the second option, when he fully qualified as lawyer that’s why he was called into the English Bar in 1971.”

MY COMMENTS

I repeat the apologist’s response: “Nana Addo opted for the second option (i.e., the Legal Practice Course for intending solicitors), when he fully qualified as lawyer that’s why he was called into the English Bar in 1971.”

So, Akufo-Addo chose the course “when he fully qualified as lawyer that’s why he was called into the English Bar in 1971”?

What must be happening? So, did he choose the course after qualifying (when he qualified) as a lawyer? How impossible? Really baffling, my good friends.

PROBABLE CONCLUSION

Folks, this response came from someone who claimed to have worked with Akufo-Addo in his law firm for 5 years and knew his background. But his response has revealed several troubling aspects for more analysis, interpretation, and interrogation. Immediate questions to spark the probing include:

• If Akufo-Addo, indeed, attended that institution to be trained as a lawyer, why did he eliminate it from his CV just as he did the Oxford University? Does he not value that institution well enough to know how important it is to his professional/career status? We’ve asked these questions because even the elementary school that he attended in Ghana and Lancing College in Sussex for his “O” and “A” levels are given prominence on his CV.

• What is shady or disgraceful about that Inns of Court (or whatever the law school that trained him is called) to warrant its being eliminated even though it would have filled the four-year gap in Akufo-Addo’s timeline?

The overarching question still hangs: Where was Akufo-Addo between 1967 and 1971?

Based on the explanation given above by that apologist, we can ask more questions: Is it possible for Akufo-Addo to enter that law institution in 1971 and complete his law training that very year to be called to the English Bar in July that same year (1971) and for him to proceed to Paris, France, that very year to work as a lawyer with a renowned international US law firm, Coudert Freres, for five years (1971–1975) before being called to the Ghana Bar on July 8, 1975?

BIG QUESTIONS: Who were Akufo-Addo’s classmates with whom he took the course in law or with whom he enrolled and graduated? Anybody out there to confirm him as a classmate?

We will continue to ask questions until we get convincing answers to lay the matter to rest. I am more than certain that by asking Akufo-Addo to respond to the fact that he is not the W.A.D akufo Addo with No. 1190 on the roll of lawyers in Ghana, Justice Kpegah is really pushing for something extra-ordinary.

Meantime, we are making every effort to know what he filed in response to Justice Kpegah’s request for him to admit facts (that he is not the W.A.D. akufo Addo with number 1190 on the roll of lawyers in Ghana and that his junior partner Prempeh is not also on the roll of lawyers in Ghana). As soon as we get anything, we will release it for our analysis. Stay tuned.

I shall return…

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