GTEC to invite Hassan Ayariga on legal threats
The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) says it intends to invite Hassan Ayariga for discussion over his threats to take the institution to court for insisting on him to provide proof of an unearned PhD or drop the title Dr.
According to GTEC, it was not interested in litigation, disgracing or embarrassing any individual over the use of an unearned PhD.
Addressing the media in Accra last Friday (July 25), the Director-General of GTEC Professor Ahmed Jinapor hinted that GTEC planned to invite Mr Ayariga for a conversation.
Conversations
“We have realised that conversations always work. We have instances where people threaten us with law suits. They instruct their lawyers to write to us, but they call back to retract their letters.
“We are not interested in disgracing anybody. I do not think Mr Ayariga needs to be called a doctor for him to be respected in the society. He has done what he needs to do to be respected,” Prof Jinapor said.
He said almost every one of those given the honorary doctorate was an accomplished individual, adding, “these are not just ordinary citizens, and that is why the awarding institutions saw them worthy of being awarded.
“So, we are very careful and cautious in the way we approach this issue. We do not want to get in to any litigation with anybody, but as a corporate entity, we can sue and be sued,” Prof Jinapor said.
He hinted that the next agenda of GTEC was to serve people as scape goats by testing the law in the form of prosecuting such individuals, insisting that the law made room for that.
Letters to individuals
On its letters to individuals, Prof Jinapor explained that in all the instances, there was nowhere GTEC told any individual that the person did not own a PhD.
“We always ask for proof of having that qualification. And if it is the case that it is unearned academic title, we ask you to desist from using same,” he explained.
He clarified that the commission “does not just come into the public domain and name people.
“For each and every individual whose name happens to have been brought into the public domain, we have had one way or the other in some form of engagement.
“Engagement in the sense that, the number of people that we might have had in the public domain is just a microcosm of the bigger number of people,” he explained.
He explained that a number of people happened to be victims of the use of honorary doctor, admitting that some of them were genuinely naive about the use of such titles.
Prof Jinapor explained that such individuals apologized and went ahead to drop the titles in their official letterheads, websites and all other official communications.
He, however explained that those, whose names had come to the public were those who, “tend to be recalcitrant.”
Why GTEC went public
Mr Ayariga, who insisted on taking GTEC to court, said at various platforms that GTEC never contacted him before going public on his doctorate title.
In a number media engagements, Mr Ayariga insisted that he got to hear of GTEC directive in both the traditional and social media.
In one such engagements claimed, “I got up this morning and all I could hear was that GTEC said I cannot use my doctorate degree and I ask, how? I didn’t get any letter from GTEC. How did they come to that conclusion?”
GTEC reacts
But reacting to those allegations by Mr Ayariga that he got to hear of GTEC directive to drop his title Dr in the media, Prof Jinapor insisted that Mr Ayaraga was communicated to some two weeks back by phone over his alleged PhD.
Providing a response from Mr Ayariga based on GTEC communication to him Prof Jinapor said Mr Ayariga could not dentodeny not being contacted.
He said Mr Ayariga’s reply dated July 15, 2025 to GTEC letter, which was written on July 14, 2025, questioned the motive for GTEC enquiry about his PhD and whether it was a nationwide exercise or he was being singled out.
Prof Jinapor explained that GTEC simply wanted to verify his continued use of ‘Dr’, “and so, we wanted to know the name of the awarding institution, whether the doctoral degree is earned or honorary, the date the degree was conferred on him and finally the process through which it was conferred.”
“He said his doctorate is in PhD, and he has two other honorary doctorates. We said well, we are not interested in the honorary,” he explained.
Prof Jinapor added that based on that, Mr Ayariga was asked to provide evidence of the academic. “We sent him a message. We didn't hear from him. Then we wrote to him officially.
“The official letter that was written to him was not put up to the public domain. He responded officially to our letter by writing. And he signed. Dr. Hassan Ayaraga,” the DG explained.
He said it was based on it that the commission requested that if he signed as Dr, then he should provide us with evidence of the doctorate.
