Friday, May 28, 2010

ADISADEL COLLEGE- THE SCHOOL

A 3-year boarding secondary school for boys (14-18years), Adisadel was founded on January 4th, 1910 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.). The school was then named SPG Grammar School. In 1924 the name was changed to St Nicholas Grammar School. When the school was relocated to its present location in early 1936 from downtown Cape Coast, it assumed its current name-Adisadel College.

Adisadel College campus sprawls over an area of approximately 1.5 square kilometers over hills and valleys in a suburb of Cape Coast known as Adisadel. Located in the historic city of Cape Coast on the beautiful central coast of Ghana. Adisadel is among the many fine educational institutions that have rendered the central coast as the cradle of premium education in Ghana.

The school campus spreads above and below a hill that is rich with tropical ecological preserves. The lower campus, known as Katanga is joined to the upper campus by a stairway that rises over 150 ft. The upper school known as Leopoldville is where the academic and administrative facilities are located. With the current student population of 2000, the school has grown and evolved from an institution that started as training boys for the Anglican priesthood.

The vision of its founder, Rev Nathaniel Templyn Hamlyn has yielded great success when one surveys the alumni of this school who have achieved greatness for their country and excelled in various endeavors. The beautiful campus of Adisadel College has facilities that are unique among secondary schools in Ghana. Among some of its facilities are a language laboratory (at one time used by the University of Cape Coast), a gymnasium, lecture theatre, computer laboratory, Library, sports stadium, an Infirmary and a chapel.

There are ten dormitories that serve as student housing. Most of the student housing have housed family generations that passed through Adisadel, thus generating a loyalty unmatched on any Ghanaian secondary school.

Adisadel offers a rigorous academic training that prepares its student for university entry. However, students are encourage to actively participate in extracurricular activities. There are also many student clubs and organizations that caters to various social and political interests. There are various musical groups that comprise of the Adisadel Jazz Band.

A perennial sports power, Adisadel competes in various athletic events in track and field, hockey, soccer, basketball and table tennis. Intra-mural sports competition is an Adisadel tradition. One's latent talent surfaces through participation in extracurricular activities participation at Adisadel.

The school offers students a chance to grow spiritually. There are various religious organizations on campus that caters to the spiritual needs of students. Adisadel has always fostered the spirit of self-dependence. Students are trained to be disciplined and follow the school rules, the first of which reads "A breach of common sense, is a breach of college rule".

Most of the facilities on the campus were built by the pioneering students. Such self-reliant deeds has positively influenced the generation of students who pass through the school to amply give back to the alma mater. Thus Adisadel still enjoys the benevolence of its alumni who continue to honor the school through various gifts.

Today there are Adisadel alumni associations all over the world. Most have achieved remarkable success and set enviable record. The competitive nature of Adisadel students can be found in the school motto "Vel Primus, Vel Cum Primis", a Latin phrase which translates "Either the first or with the first.

No size, can't imagine life without Adisadel experience. Long live the Greatest School.......Adisadel College.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Blowing The Cash In The Name Of Kwame Nkrumah!

The level of hypocrisy in Ghana is so amazing that sometimes one is tempted to throw up. I understand that an amount of 40 billion old cedis is being spent on the birthday celebrations of Ghana’s former President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

According to Prof. Akilagpa Sawyer, the chairman of the committee overseeing the anniversary, so far they are ‘within budget’ and they expect to be within budget for the year that the program would take.

Hear him, “The committee will not go beyond its budget. We are still under budget and intend to be under budget for the year.”

But I ask, is it very socialist in orientation to be spending 40 billion of public funds on a birthday anniversary, even for a former President, when the nation of Ghana is so broke that many people are going to bed hungry?

I may not be a socialist (as some hypocrites claim to be) but it breaks my heart when I travel along the streets of Accra at night to the sight of women, men and children sleeping alongside our thoroughfares.

I wonder how many hostels can be constructed by forty billion cedis for the homeless people of Accra.

Surely, the number must be many indeed! And what better way can we manifest the birthday of somebody like Kwame Nkrumah than by using it to improve the lives of the poor?

But I guess that that is not part of the plans for the ‘socialists’ who are organizing the celebrations!

Hypocrites and parasites!

Letter to the Editor, Ghanaian Lens

27th May 2010

Mr. Kobby Fiagbe
The Editor
The Ghanaian Lens
No. 2 Aku Lane
Mamprobi, Sempe
P. O. Box LT 472
Accra

Dear Sir:

I had neither heard of your newspaper nor read it, obviously, until today, when some friends drew my attention to your ‘Frontpage Comment’ that was directed at me. I am intrigued by your amazing ability to dig up and hurl insulting words and unpalatable language at me simply because you disagree with my view on what the law says. I do not pretend to be the ‘be-all-and-end-all’ in matters of the law. I just state what I think. It is your right to disagree with me. Although some would wish that I also dig up choice insults and toss them back at you, I am just not able to express myself with that kind of diction.

I prefer to engage with people who disagree with me, even if they do so in a disagreeable manner. Somehow, I believe that when we learn to engage, talk and debate, we discover that we are often sitting on the same pew and singing from the same hymn sheet, even if we sing in different parts, and even if our voices are discordant.

INSULTS
Let me re-state my complete abhorrence of insults directed at anyone, let alone the President of this realm. If I were to heed to my baser instincts, then I would advocate that the gentleman (I use this term advisedly) who had the effrontery to utter foul words about the President should be locked up and the key thrown away. Years ago, a good 12 lashes adminstered to his sorry, ashy behind would have been in order. But I have grown to learn that acting by those instincts has not served society well, and that is why we are guided, not by fuming rage, but by sober, cold laws.

INSULTING THE PRESIDENT
So what does the law say about this situation, and why are you so angry that I said what I think the law says? In 1969, the NLC government amended the then Criminal Code (now the "Criminal Offences Act") by introducing section 183A, which made it an offence to insult the President. The section (as subsequently amended) provided specifically as follows:

A person who with intent to bring the President into hatred, ridicule or contempt publishes a defamatory or insulting matter whether by writing, print, word of mouth or in any other manner concerning the President commits a criminal offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding seven hundred and fifty penalty units or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three years or to both the fine and the imprisonment.

Just by way of analogy, this was not the only legal provision that made it an offence to insult certain persons. Section 63(c) of the 2008 Chieftaincy Act makes it an offence to “knowingly” use disrespectful or insulting language or insult a chief by word or conduct. This re-enacted section 53(a) of the erstwhile 1971 Chieftaincy Act. I make this point because although we found it expedient to repeal section 183A of the Criminal Offences Act in 2001, we have kept the parallel provision in the Chieftaincy Act and even had it re-enacted in 2008.

There is no doubt that this gentleman, who is inaptly nicknamed ‘High Priest,’ would be making a beeline to jail if section 183A was applicable today or if he had uttered those words with respect to a chief. However, parliament repealed section 183A in 2001. You and I did not have much of a say in that. In effect, notwithstanding our collective angst (real or pretended) at what the gentleman said, it does not constitute a criminal offence; and that is my position. For will or for woe, we have the rather anomalous situation where it is not an offence to insult the President, who is by law the number one citizen of the lad, but it is an offence to insult a chief.

OFFENSIVE CONDUCT
You make quite a song and dance over section 207. Of course, I am aware of section 207. However, I think that it would have been better if that section had not been mentioned at all in connection with this matter. You are right that that section relates to offensive conduct, but it specifically provides as follows:

"A person who in a public place or at a public meeting uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or by which a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned, commits a misdemeanour."

Even upon first reading, one would notice that the arrest under this section was problematic, and that a prosecution under the section would simply have made this gentleman a hero, because he would have walked free. First, the studio of a private radio station cannot be a “public place” by any stretch of legal principles or any person’s imagination, however fertile, especially when you consider the statutory definition of a “public place” as a “place… to which the public are entitled or permitted to have access.” If even the frontage of a house has been held not to be a “public place,” then how on earth was the prosecution going to convince a court that this statement was made in a public place? Second, how would the prosecution have been able to prove that his words were intended to “provoke a breach of the peace”, or that the words were likely to result in a breach of the peace? Was that ‘likelihood’ going to be judged by the level of tolerance or otherwise of the people who marched to the station? And if that was the case, would it not be easy to conjure up this offence simply by organising people to march whenever we are unhappy with something that is said on air? The prosecution would have been faced with an extremely uphill, if not impossible, task. The arrest by reference to that section was a real stretch, and I was waiting to see how this would play out in court.

Third, the police would really have had to deal with legitimate questions about why various people have heaped and dumped insults on others on radio stations and in newspapers (as you have done to me), and yet the police have not acted and stretched section 207 to cover those situations. I am pretty certain that graver minds have prevailed.

FORGIVENESS
Somehow, all of this is now moot because the President forgave the gentleman and requested that the police should abandon the case. That, in my view, and contrary to what others have expressed, is a proper application of the spirit behind section 73 of the Courts Act, which encourages the settlement of non-felony criminal matters, even when they are on trial. Many (including me, I must admit) would have wished the President had sued this gentleman in our civil courts; but I must also concede that it was probably prudent and clever of the President to ignore this and focus on his job.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Mr. Editor, you may state that you disagree with me and my view of the law. That is democracy. But in a near rabid fit of anger and literally foaming at the mouth, you have gone way overboard, waxing adjectival, and describing me with choice words that surprise me. I cannot use the same words, even if I try very hard. I could have gone to court to seek redress; but that is not my style. However if you would do me the honour of publishing this response with the same prominence as your ‘Frontpage Comment’, then maybe, just maybe, your readers would have the opportunity to compare what you wrote with what I have to say, and judge for themselves whether your choice of words was appropriate under the circumstances.

Best regards
Credit: Ace Kojo Anan

Mills, An Apostle Of Evil!

I have noticed something rather frightening about President John Evans Atta Mills, which gives great reason for concern. I have noticed that since he assumed power, he has developed a penchant for siding with wrong doers and the evil sides of the argument every time there is a contention issue under consideration.

In previous write-ups, I have had occasion to state that per my careful perusal of the President, I find him to be a man who often takes the line of least resistance whenever there is an issue to be addressed. In every single tough decision that needs to be taken, I have found that the President is liable to take a position not in the interest of right, but off his backers.

However, I am revising that opinion for the position that when he is cornered, President Atta Mills is liable to take decisions that portend evil and wrong doing.

For instance, that can be the only acceptable reason behind the decision to do away with Dr. Kwame Ampofo, the former Chief Executive Officer of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), who was stripped off his post a couple of days ago for reasons that are at all unclear.

Before his dismissal, the media was awash with information about a turf fight between him and mandarins at the Energy Ministry and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) over the importation of crude oil for refining purposes by TOR.

As a reasonable man, I believe that TOR should be allowed to import its own crude oil. With the President being purportedly a reasonable person, I would have thought that he would side with those who insist that TOR should do the importation. What he chose to do was side with those who are pushing the GNPC deal.

Of course, I should not be surprised by the President’s decision. This is a President who allowed his District Chief Executives to be chased out of their capitals, who told the embattled DCEs that he would give them his full backing, and then ran to Accra to come and dismiss them. What can you expect from such a deceitful individual?

There are other reasons why you should not be surprised. This is a President who came to power on the alter of being a President for all, but allowed his fellow party members to heap all manner of hardships on Ghanaians. It is in his nature!

President Atta Mills, who made the entire nation to believe that he believes in fighting corruption, is currently superintending the persecution and prosecution of whistle-blowers who blew the lid on the corruption and abuse that was taking place at the Sports Ministry under the nose of Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak.

Although many reasonable and well-meaning Ghanaians have expressed grave concern about the treatment of the whistle-blowers, President Atta Mills and his government are bent on prosecuting them for blowing the lid on official corruption.

Meanwhile Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak, who engaged in the corruption and abuse, has been set free and actually has the nerve to go on the floor of parliament and on radio to make noise and to pontificate on the affairs of this country!

Our President is an apostle of evil. He is taking decisions on wrong and evil premises. He is not a believer in what is good. He does not mean well for the people of Ghana, and for me, this is wholly unacceptable!

The decision to get rid of Kwame Ampofo to please the mandarins who brought him to power should send a clear signal to all of us that our President is not out for the well-being of all of us!