Professor Raymond Atuguba has alleged that the removal of Professor Mawutor Avoke from office as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), was on ethnic grounds.
In an article arguing against the scheduled induction of the new Vice Chancellor for the University, Rev. Prof Anthony Afful-Broni, he intimated that the removal of Dr Wilberforce Dzisah as Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), was also ethnically based.
[contextly_sidebar id=”6vA8wvhlu5Tokw6bKPDcA9OQOP0etuow”]”After 25 years of Constitutional Democracy, it is a shameful disgrace that Vice Chancellors of public universities will be installed and removed based on ethnocentrism,” he lamented.
The University of Education is set to induct Rev. Prof Anthony Afful-Broni as its fourth Vice-Chancellor today [Monday] in a ceremony Prof. Atuguba maintains is illegal because of a pending court case.
The former UEW Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mawutor Avoke together with six other Principal Officers of the University, were removed by the Governing Council.
Plans for their removal only began after the New Patriotic Party came to power in 2017, Prof Atuguba outlined.
“When a change of government occurred in January 2017, a certain cabal, for lack of a better word, that is associated with Winneba saw this as an opportunity to change principal officers of the University of Education, Winneba. After acting as lawyer for the victims of this move, I can only conclude that the only real reason for their removal was ethnocentric. So Vice Chancellor Avoke, Finance Officer Akorlie, and bearers of similar such names had to go.”
Similar actions may have occurred at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, he added.
“Note that this is not an isolated incident. At the moment, I am also lawyer for VC Dzisah of the Ghana Institute of Journalism, who, like Avoke and Akorlie bear names that are not quite ‘right’. I must say that the whole enterprise was so revolting, distasteful and crude that I constantly had mental and tummy convulsions in conducting the cases, until I decided to withdraw my representation before I was tempted to say things in court that are unprofessional and jeopardise my clients’ cases.”
Prof. Atuguba is no longer acting as lawyer for Prof. Avoke due to what he describes as some ‘unseen’ hands meddling with the case.
“I must be forthright and say at this point that when I withdrew my legal representation for the Vice Chancellor (VC) of UEW and his other embattled colleagues, in open court in the Cape Coast High Court, it was because I sensed unseen hands operating to prevent one of the fairest judges I have ever appeared before, from dispensing justice speedily and justly, or at all,” a statement from him read.
–
By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
