Some things that really annoy me

Folks, we are not done with the bombshell thrown and blown by Prof. Raymond Atuguba in his research work to tell Ghanaians what is nothing new: that the one paying the piper always calls the tune.

Dare the piper challenge the payer's edict? Dare the piper fail to sing the tune called by the piper? What happens? No payment. No room for a piper to pipe, then, because the energy for piping comes from the payment made by the piper. No act of piping because piping must depend on sustenance. Can the piper survive, if piping is his means of sustenance? No!!

The context for my analogy is clear. Justices appointed by political authorities aren't faultless angels. They know where they came from to be what the appointing authority has made them now---and will ensure that they don't bite the finger feeding them. Thus, they are inevitably bound to obey the command of whoever made them so. Is this not a simple matter for easy comprehension?

What would have become of all those so-called brilliant "Learned Friends" in public service as magistrates, judges, or whatever else if no appointing authority noticed them to be used as pawns in the chess game of justice delivery?

Could such brilliant "Learned Friends" have opted to be in private practice to avoid being manipulated and paid by the piper? If it were easy, they would have gone that way to spare us the nonsense that they are spewing just because they have been put under the searchlight by a bold academic who knows what his profession dictates.

Prof. Raymond Atuguba has made a bold move on that score that deserves huge commendation. Those jumping on him are wasting their energy. Interestingly, those in academia in Ghana aren't up on their feet to support him, even though the always demand that government should pay them "research allowances, short of which they withdraw their services. What is their research to accomplish if it doesn't come out with findings to "shake" the system for reforms that it needs to shape up?

Prof. Atuguba has gone the right way and I will continue to respect him for being so bold and proactive in leading us where we have to go in knowing why our Judiciary is so porous and ineffectual in justice administration. In any country where justice delivery is grappled with what Prof. Atuguba has unearthed, nothing good emerges to grow democracy.

It is clear that intellectual work of his kind will need an intellectual approach to bring out the intricacies. Not any wayside nonsense as has come from Justices Akuffo (Chief Justice) and Justice Dotse (a disreputable character still holding on to his status because of the changed circumstances when the payer is putting more into him to pipe all the more. He is an NPP buff, if he cares to be told the truth that he hates!!).

In their arrogant and ill-informed reaction to prof. Atuguba's presentation, they opened the sluice gates for equally petulant and uneducated rascals in the mass media to join them in undermining prof. Atuguba.

One of such characters is Kwaku Baako, who challenged Prof. Atuguba to pubkish his "controversial findings". What malarkey?

When academic work is at issue, where do the school drop-outs of Kwaku Baakos type come in?

What is the virtue or trump-card for them? Being "journalists"? From which culture?

Interestingly (or annoyingly), there are many of those characters spearheading Akufo-Addo's propaganda onslaughts.



What does Kwaku Baako know about the rigours of academic research? Where would he have learnt those rigours, anyway?

Folks, under Akufo-Addo, anything goes. Too bad for Ghana. And those of us who do research on topics of interest to society easily become angry to have pesky characters of Kwaku Baako's type who know little to nothing about the rigours of research but shoot their mouths just because they have the medium to air their senseless views.

What the Ghanaian journalist calls research falls flat in the face of academic research. Will Kwaku Baako and his gang of "Soli" or "Item 13" fucking idiots calling themselves journalists take note? I am being harsh here for a good and genuine cause. Academic integrity matters to us (the academics) more than they do to those uneducated irritants who have no means to become academics because they lack what it takes to be such!! Let us enjoy our swagger!!

None can run down Prof. Atuguba for what he has set in motion. The truth is that the one who appointed her and whose ventriloquist she was at the GIMPA ceremony isn't even sure of his own standing as the lawyer that he has presented himself all these 42 years of that calling. A genuine lawyer will put in office those who know how to deal with issues of legal import. No more. No turning on again, folks!!