By Iddi Muhayu-Deen
I
honestly think that Ghanaians have had enough of the intransigence of KNUST
UTAG and TEWU on their failure to appreciate the wisdom behind the need to RECONSTITUTE
a new Governing Council to man the affairs of the ‘trouble-ridden University’.
You don’t need to have a sense of good judgment to know that the old council
had completely lost legitimacy for superintending over such gross human rights
abuses, draconian regime, organized lawlessness and institutionalized impunity
against their students.
You
don’t need a sense of good judgment to know that the old governing council of
the university that visited such excruciating and inexplicable injustices upon
the students culminating in the violent demonstration of October 22, which led
to the closure of the school, CANNOT be brought back. This is so basic and
commonsensical that I expect even a primary 3 pupil to understand. So I ask,
what at all is the motive of these lecturers and TEWU members for insisting
that their reps in the old discredited council should be included in the new
yet to be constituted governing council? I am just unable to come to terms with
their disingenuous disposition and the poverty of their logic in this
conversation.
You
want to bring back the old governing council because of whose “recklessness and
incompetence”, the ordinary Ghanaian taxpayer is now going to cough up over
GHc1.7 which is the estimated cost of the destructions arising from the violent
demonstration? Are you serious? And
because you are being told that it is unreasonable to do this unthinkable act,
you are threatening to withdraw your services and embark on an indefinite
strike? Wow! I guess you deserve a clap for this.
But
what then happens to the basic principle of people taking responsibility for
their actions and inactions? Why do we subject people to disciplinary actions
for alleged wrongdoing? How do we, the taxpayers (who are invariably going to
pay for these damages) get justice if the very people who caused this mess are
allowed to remain at post, whilst the matter is being investigated? How do the
students get justice? Since the action(s) of the previous council is a subject-matter
for investigation, how can they be investigating themselves? How can they be
judges in their own case?
Doesn’t
this make nonsense of the uncompromising principle of Natural Justice on the
rule against bias which finds expression in the legal maxim, nemo judex in causa
sua? Is this not a very fundamental principle of law that is respected and
upheld in all jurisdictions? Is this not the very principle upheld by the
courts of Ghana in Akufo-Addo v Quarshie Idun, Exparte Mobile, Republic
v Constitutional Committee Chairman; Exparte Braimah II, Adzaku v Galenku, Ex-parte
Ameyaw II, Sasu v Amua Sakyi and Ex-parte Awusu II among
several others?
Okay,
since you [UTAG and TEWU] claim you are talking law and due process, let me
debate you in your so called comfort zone. Now, we are not talking logic but
law. But before that, I wish to admit that I was initially wrong when I said
the President and for that matter government was not the appointing authority
for the KNUST governing council and therefore, per Article 297 of the 1992
Constitution of Ghana, government couldn’t have disappointed or dissolved the governing
council because it was not the appointing authority.
However,
upon some education I got from some lawyer friends of mine and my subsequent
reading of Article 70 of the Constitution together with the KNUST Act, (Act
80), I came to the inevitable conclusion that the President [government] was
indeed the appointing authority of the KNUST governing council. The other
bodies or constituencies only make nominations for the President to exercise
the powers vested in him in Article 70 to appoint the persons so nominated into
the governing council. Since the President is the appointing authority, he
certainly, per Article 279 has the power to disappoint or dissolve the council.
The
KNUST Act, however so problematically couched, cannot be read to take away the
president’s appointing authority under Article 70 of the Constitution. The
constitution is the supreme law of Ghana and per Article 1(2), any other law
found to be inconsistent with any provision of the Constitution shall be void
to the extent of the inconsistency. Also, KNUST, being a public University just
like UG, UDS, UEW etc, cannot have an Act that is so inconsistent with the Acts
of all the other public Universities particularly in respect of the appointment
of members of governing council.
Even
with the KNUST Act (Act 80), when the sole Statute
Law Revision Commissioner of Ghana, VCRAC Crabbe, whose office revised the Laws
of Ghana from 1852 to 2004 in seven volumes, took away the powers of the
PNDC Secretary to make appointments into the KNUST council, it failed to
specifically mention who was to effect the appointment. The KNUST Act, as it
stands now, Section 7(1) of Act 80 only states that,
“The governing body of the University shall be the University Council which
shall consist of the following members appointed by the PNDC”. It proceeds to
mention the members including 7(1)(g), that talks about “a representative of
the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution of the University”.
Let anybody tell me whether the PNDC is still in existence and
whether it was the PNDC that appointed the members of the council that was recently
dissolved. Let anybody tell me whether we had a representative of the Committee
for the Defence of the Revolution in the council, as provided by the Act. This
only tells us how archaic and inoperative the KNUST Act has become particularly
Section 7. It also tells us how Parliament has failed the nation in its law
making functions. It appears we pay people “fat fat salaries” for not doing
much. Our institutions of state seem not to be working.
I am not surprised that as a nation, we still do not have a
single document governing tertiary education in the country, and yet we pride
ourselves as the beacon of hope in Africa. How ironic and shameful! Mr.
President, this, respectfully, doesn’t make me feel proud to call myself a citizen;
perhaps, I’m better off as a spectator if this is all we have to show for being
citizens.
So, members of KNUST UTAG and TEWU, you can see clearly that,
the only inevitable logical inference that can be drawn from the reading of
Section 7 of Act 80 as well as Article 70 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana is
that, the President and for that matter the government of Ghana is the appointing
authority of the University Council. Nowhere in the KNUST Act does it say that
TEWU and UTAG should nominate people to serve on the council. So, if I were to
advise government, I would say government should ignore you [KNUST UTAG and
TEWU] and go ahead to appoint people from your fold to represent you in the
council.
Government has been too magnanimous with you people pleading
with you to nominate a representative each for appointment other than the
individuals who served in the previous council that caused the mess. Is this a
rocket science that you can’t understand? Well, if you think the Asantehene has
the legal authority to appoint a governing council that would include your
preference, just go ahead and let him do that and inaugurate the council. If
you think government is acting unlawfully, just go to court and challenge same.
And let’s see whether your internal regulation of choosing a so called council
rep is subservient or superior to the laws of Ghana. We are NOT unintelligent. Enough!!
Asslamu alaik
Iddi Muhayu-Deen
#ForGodAndCountry
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