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| Protesting law students hold placards |
Before the protesting law
students embarked on their demonstration, speeches upon speeches were read by
some executives of their front. Prominent among these speeches— in my view— was
that by the President of the National Association of Law Students, Nii Adokwei
Cudjoe.
Mr. Adokwei had not
only charged his students to remain steadfast to their course of protesting for
reforms in the country’s legal education but that they should vehemently resist
the oppressor’s rule.
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| President, National Association of Law Students, Nii Adokwei Cudjoe addressing the protesters. Photo Credit: Writer |
"History will
remember you. Do not think what you are doing [the demonstration] is in vain?
We have come to the crossroads and your boldness is a statement. We are not
here hiding our faces. If we keep singing the National Anthem but do not live
it then whom are we praying to? Resist oppressor's rule," he said.
As if by dint of fate,
the protesters later on in their demonstration encountered a situation that
demanded they vehemently resist the oppressor’s rule as earlier admonished.
Nonetheless, the
protesting law students were as helpless as a tethered he-goat. They could not resist
the oppressor— at that moment— being the Ghana Police Service and not the Chief
Justice, Sophia Akuffo.
Just about a stone
throw from the Liberation Road, the direction from the Ako Adjei Overpass
towards the Jubilee House in Accra, heavily armed police men and women
numbering close to 20 or more confronted the protesting students.
This was on Monday,
October 7, 2019 when the students had walked peacefully from the very entrance
of the Ghana School of Law, using the Atta Mills Highstreet to negotiate the
curve to walk in front of the High Court Complex through to the ministries to
the Office of the Attorney General, to the office of the Ghana Bar Association [close
to the Ghana Institute of Journalism] and finally headed to the Jubilee House
where they were stopped on the Liberation Road.
I must state that I
followed the protesters from the beginning of the journey till they met the
police who used force on them. In all honesty, doing my job as a journalist on
that day, reporting for Media General’s radio stations [3FM and Onua FM], I never
saw the protesters showing any sign of aggression at any point. They didn’t pose
danger to pedestrians/motorists or whoever came their way.
It was at the Office of
the Attorney General that the students ambushed the vehicle of the Deputy AG,
Godfred Dame. Here, I never saw any student raising a hand to hit his vehicle
or whatsoever. The ambushing of Mr. Dame’s vehicle was just understandable in
the given situation of a protest where the students needed nothing but the man
taking their petition so they could leave.
This, when I later read
a concocted account by the Ghana Police Service on the students’ demonstration,
I pitied this country called Ghana. A law enforcement entity having a penchant
for telling lies to save itself from atrocities committed is more dangerous than
a mentally derailed man wielding a gun!
Portions of the said
statement read: “They then headed towards Jubilee House and on reaching King
Tackie Tawiah/[Ako Adjei] Overpass, they sat in the middle of the road and
pelted the Police with stones and offensive weapons. In the process, police
sprayed cold water and fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.”
To put it succinctly, it
was not until the police prevented the students from marching to the Jubilee
House that their leaders told them to sit down on the road. They did not just
sit upon reaching there! Even this, Mr. Adokwei had pleaded with his members to
occupy one lane of the road so approaching vehicles could have their way. The
students eventually obliged.
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| Some students sit on the Liberation Road that leads to the Jubilee House. Photo Credit: Solomon Mensah |
Again, no protesting
student threw even a grain of gari at
any police officer as the police claimed receiving pelted stones. If the police
have evidence to this effect— being pelted with stones and others— then I dare
them to bring forth such to counter some of us who followed the protest with
rapt attention.
Rather annoyingly, it
was the police who fired over 10 warning shots [into the air], fired rubber
bullets [leading to a cameraman with Yen.com
sustaining injuries] and aggressively using its water cannons on the students.
For those students who
showed sign of resistance, they were hauled and manhandled like expired goods
and shoved into police trucks.
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| Police hauls protester into truck. Photo Credit: Solomon Mensah |
Observing the gloomy mood
of the armed police, one would have thought that perhaps Boko Haram had invaded
our country. So, it was sickening seeing the level of force used against a
group of harmless protesters.
If the police had
employed these heavily armed officers in the case of the Takoradi missing
girls, I am certain we would have had a better story to tell of the girls. But,
they remained adamant because they feared for their lives to confront the
kidnappers [one of them is their own who aided the prime suspect to ‘break
jail’] and now would annoyingly show their muscles on the protesting law
students.
On the day of the
protest, I spoke off camera to an officer of the Accra Regional Police Command
who was at the scene of the police’s use of force. His account to me and what I
subsequently heard the Director of Public Affairs at the Ghana Police Service,
ASP David Eklu, narrate to 3FM News tell
that the police merely acted as puppets of some persons within the Jubilee
House on that fateful Monday.
Of a truth, the
police’s account on why they stopped the protesters does not make sense. That,
they did not approve the said demonstration. Meanwhile, the leadership of the
students and the police had met about five days before the demonstration as
they [leaders] submitted a letter of the protest detailing their route and what
have you.
This, ASP David Eklu
admits in the 3FM interview with morning
show host, Winston Amoah, that they [police] had sent a separate letter of
cancelation to the students but it could not reach them until the very morning
of the day earmarked for the demonstration.
So, the police in its
wisdom expected the students to call off their demonstration when they had made
arrangements including buses, with other students from the Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology in the Ashanti Region and those from the
University of Cape Coast all on their way to Accra to protest?
Again, if the police
say the protest was illegal, why did they not stop the students from embarking it
in the first place when they [police] were at the Ghana School of Law in the
morning?
Clearly, it suggests
that all is not well with the Ghana Police Service. Their inability to take
sound decisions on their own often stupefies their front and this is true in their
use of unnecessary force on the law students.
If you have a president
who ‘cleared’ police officers mentioned for wrongdoings by the Emile Short
Commission that probed the Ayawaso by election fracas, then you expect nothing
but emboldening some of our police wo/men to wallow in their stupidity. Are
these officers not ‘attack dogs’!?
Away from the police
and their day of shame, I only think that the demands of the law students are
genuine and all and sundry must join them in their ‘fight’ for reforms in the
country’s legal education.
Does it make sense that
a student having ‘Cs’ in three [3] subjects is said to have failed all other subjects
even if they had say ‘As’ in the rest? Does it make sense that a student
seeking to resit a failed paper is obliged to pay ₵3000? So, if you failed
three papers you pay ₵9000 for resit! Are the resit papers questions set by
God?
Why are students
writing the contested entrance examination into the Ghana School of Law obliged
to sign a bond/undertaking? Speaking to some of the protesters, I chastised
them for signing such a document. No matter the explanation the students give,
I think people being trained to be lawyers must not sign such an undertaking
that forbids them from protesting if they failed the entrance examination.
If one of America’s
celebrated journalists, Amy Goodman, was right when she said, “Go to where the
silence is and say something”, then this is the time for you [reading this
piece] to say something in the face of powers-that-be going cold on the students’
demand.
The study of law— a prestigious
profession— must not be made to seem in Ghana as though one is studying the
nature and origin of the mysterious beings in heaven. The charcoal seller’s
child must equally have access to the Ghana School of Law as has the crooked
politician’s child.
The writer is a
broadcast journalist with Media General [TV3/3FM]. Views expressed herein are
solely his, and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his
organisation whatsoever.
Twitter: @aniwaba