Missing babies & tollbooth headaches

I wish to react to your columnist Colin Essamuah’s piece as titled above and published in his ‘Abura Epistle’, in the Daily Graphic of Friday, February 21, 2014 in which he made reference to my person in respect of the Legon toll saga.

In the said piece, your columnist wrote, “…Now to the Legon incident. The tolling and resultant interminable delay in entering the university has delayed my own trip to campus to collect a few books to help me clear some cobwebs in this column relative to an earlier article about their past vice chancellors. I must make a confession here.

I had earlier thought the Legon authorities had a case tolling their exits till I was persuaded by the able advocacy of lawyer Egbert Faibille about two weeks ago on radio spelling out his opposing views. The lawyer had taken the case of two students who were challenging the university as to the legality of the tolling exercise. 

Intellectual acrobatics

“To say I was stunned to hear the same lawyer condemn the destruction of the booth in contradistinction to the brief that he has taken is to understate my sorrow at such intellectual acrobatics.

Way back in early 1996, Rosemary Ekwam of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) wept like a baby when she won her case at the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the ambition of Kwame Pianim to be presidential candidate of the NPP in view of the fact that Pianim had served time in jail for subversion.

It later turned out that Mrs Ekwam had been put up to this dangerous ambit by Mr Pianim himself! As an aside, the lawyer for the victorious Mrs Ekwam was Nkrabeah Effah Dartey, who suffered disqualification from the NPP presidential primaries in 2007 using the same laws. Here, we have Egbert behaving like Mrs Ekwam. Why?...”

I know Mr Colin Essamuah loves to use his column in your esteemed newspaper to fight for the Mahama administration and by implication support the reckless, gung ho methods adopted by Lt-Col  Larry Gbevlo Lartey (rtd) and his hirelings in invading the campus of the University of Ghana for purposes of illegally pulling down one of the tollbooths; but that is certainly no licence for him to write such poor illogic for your readers.

Mr Colin Essamuah  in the part of his column quoted above in reference to me develops a syllogism thus:

a.Egbert Faibille is opposed to the tolling of Legon roads

b.Lt-Col Gbevlo Lartey (rtd) and his hirelings have demolished one of the booths that Legon uses to toll its roads such that Legon will not be able to toll its roads

Conclusion: Therefore, Egbert Faibille must be happy. 

What  Colin Essamuah misses is that whilst I am opposed to the unlawful charging of tolls by the University of Ghana, I will not support any unlawful activity to intimidate that institution to stop the collection of the tolls, whilst the Supreme Court prepares to hear the suit filed.  

As a citizen, I have gone on radio to state that there is a procedure pursuant to the Tolls Act, 1973; NRCD 153, which the University of Ghana should comply with if it desires to toll its roads.  Further to that, I have been instructed in my professional capacity by two citizens of the republic to file an action in the Supreme Court against the University of Ghana and the Attorney General to uphold their constitutional rights with respect to the tolling of roads at the university. Whilst waiting for the court to determine the matter, Lt-Col Larry Gbevlo Lartey (rtd) in the name of the unruly horse of national security, invades the University of Ghana campus without the authority of any court order to demolish property of the university which is also public owned; and your columnist expects me, a right thinking member of society, to applaud it. Such palpable illogic.

As an alumnus of the University of Ghana, just like Colin Essamuah and  Lt Col  Gbevlo Lartey (rtd), we can all attest to the safety and security we enjoyed as students who were in statu pupillari and the protection by the university authorities who also stood in loco parentis during our days in that institution, albeit at various times.

I will not, therefore, as an alumnus support any wanton destruction of property of the same University of Ghana, especially when that act does not emanate  from lawful authority. If this posturing is what Colin Essamuah prefers to call intellectual acrobatics, then I can assure him that he is entitled to his opinion, illogical as it is. After all, Ghana has space for all sorts of thinking.

Needless reference

The needless reference and comparison of my good self and position on the destruction of the tollbooth to that of Mrs Ekwam and her court case against Kwame Pianim is yet again plain illogic on the part of Colin Essamuah and betrays how his political lenses  are partisan-focused, narrow and subjective.

The innuendo contained therein is so apparent as Colin Essamuah seeks to convey an understanding, wonky and warped as it is, that I have been paid to sue the University of Ghana just like Mrs Ekwam who he claims without a scintilla of evidence though, was paid by Kwame Pianim to sue him.

I believe in law and order and will not applaud the destruction of public property, employing so-called epistles from Abura on any day in Ghana. If all past national security co-ordinators of this republic had resorted to unlawful methods such as happened recently at Legon to demolish structures at a public entity like the University of Ghana, Colin Essamuah may not have been lucky to have attended that prestigious  institution to study history and be writing epistles in a publicly owned newspaper like the Daily Graphic.

I demand that my rejoinder be published in full pursuant to Article 162(6) of the 1992 Constitution.