A pronouncement by Ghana's former first lady suggesting thatPresident John Kufuor is not an attorney as he claims is generatingcontroversy. Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, wife of Ghana's former PresidentJerry Rawlings reportedly challenged President Kufuor as well as presidentialcandidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Akufu-Addo to tellGhanaians the names of the schools they attained for their respective lawdegrees. But the ruling NPP described the formerfirst lady's challenge as misguided and one that should be treated withcontempt. The party added that presidential candidate Akufu Addo, who servedunder President Kufuor's administration as attorney general and foreignminister, was called to the Ghanaian Bar on July 8, 1975. From Ghana's capital,Accra Nana Agyeman-Rawlings tells reporter Peter Clottey that the ruling partytook her words out of context.
"Tobegin with, this party and the government always take things completely out ofcontext. What happened was that a group of students came to see my husband(former President Jerry Rawlings), and he asked me to sit in with them. Andthey were talking generally about how they (students) have been totallymisinformed about various issues and so on. They also talked about the moraldecadence that the country has been fed based on the cocaine and all kinds ofthings, and the persistent lies that were being told,"Agyeman-Rawlings noted.
Shesaid things were happening under the current administration that needed to behighlighted upon.
"Whenit came to my turn to speak, I then talked about the moral decadence and thefact that even statistics are being faked to be given to us as a people wheneverybody can see and feel the reality. And I went on to talk about a totalsense of insecurity in the country now because everybody is afraid to go outafter certain times, which was not like that in Ghana before," she said.
Agyeman-Rawlingssaid President Kufuor denied in an interview that he was ever an attorney.
"As for Mr. Kufuor, he cameon BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and said it himself. When theinterviewer was trying to ask him about some legal issues, he told the guy hewas not a lawyer. And the man said but on your CV (Curriculum Vitae) you claimto be a lawyer, but President Kufuor said, I am telling you I am not a lawyer.He (President Kufuor) did PPE, that is Political Science, Philosophy and Economics,and that he never read law and so on, and he does not know why people keepsaying he is a lawyer," Agyeman-Rawlings noted.
She said the ruling party'spresidential candidate is yet to confirm or deny how he acquired his law degreeafter he was challenged.
"On the Akufu-Addo one,sometime in 2002 there was a discussion on radio. And one of the MP (member ofparliament) Honorable Dr. Kumbuor came out to clearly say and I quote "Akufu-Addo to the best of my knowledge an available record has no visibledegree in law and particularly in constitutional law". So, I was quoting basedon what had already been said and all of them (ruling party) had gone to begthis Honorable MP not to continue the discussion on television. So, they areattacking me because they know what I have said is true," she said.
Agyeman-Rawlings denied shewas attacking the character of the ruling party's presidential candidate aheadof this year's general election.
"You know what? I was notattacking. I was bringing to the fore facts that people were not trying to saybecause I know for a fact that Nana Akufu-Addo did economics. I also havepeople that he was living with when he was in Paris, he did not do law inParis. Now they are telling us that he did law in the UK (United Kingdom). Butin the UK you cannot go and do the bar without doing at least two years of lawschool. So, all he has to do is to say this is the university I attended, thisis the level I reached and based on this I went to this bar. It is up to him tocome and prove to us that he has done this. That is all there is,"Agyeman-Rawlings pointed out.