Baba Jamal Exposed: 'Mills Has No First Class'

Baba Jamal, Deputy Information Minister

Deputy Information Minister Baba Jamal was at his worst last week when he dangled the wrong university scorecard for Prof John Evans Atta Mills, to make the President look good.

The embarrassment compelled the Presidency to direct the Communications Director to correct the blunder.

The deputy minister committed the blunder when he sought to juxtapose the academic performance of the President and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, explaining that since the former had first class and the NPP flag bearer, third class, President Mills would make a better leader.

In a typical black-sheep-to-white-fat-cow fashion, Baba Jamal, who had gained notoriety for lying through his teeth, sought to compare the academic performances of Nana Addo and President Mills, even though the two did not study the same programme, as the deputy minister claimed.

'It is a statement of fact that they (Mills and Nana Addo) sat in the same classroom but one had first class and the other had third class,' he boasted on Asempa FM last Thursday.

'Prof Mills had his doctorate degree at the age of 27 years; he taught law for 25 years and was the boss of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for 10 years, while Nana Addo was just a lawyer,' the deputy Information Minister said.

His submission prompted Lawyer Mike Oquaye Jnr to bring out the true picture, a disclosure that compelled the presidency to order a correction to reflect the truth of the matter, which was a subtle condemnation of Baba Jamal's statement.

Speaking on Joy FM 's Newsfile programme on Saturday, Lawyer Oquaye Jnr said, 'Baba Jamal, I put it to you that President Mills did not get a First Class. I am reliably informed that he did not get a First Class; he got a 2:1, Second Class Upper. So why do you come and lie to Ghanaians that he got a first class?'

When the cat was finally let out of the bag as in the foregone, observers could not help but recall the deputy minister's infamous call on district information officers to tell Ghanaians that government had presented a cow even when the reality was a sheep. The duty of such officials, he said, was to make government look good even if it meant lying to Ghanaians.

Political observers, and they are very active these days, wondered why Baba Jamal sought to compare the academic records of the two gentlemen, the president and the NPP flag bearer, when the two did not read the same programme or even sit in the same classroom as the deputy minister stated.

While President Mills studied law for his first degree, Nana Akufo Addo read economics at that level even though both were in Legon Hall playing soccer together.

Nana Addo later studied law in the UK where he was called to the English bar as a barrister and solicitor.

Baba Jamal was peeved by Nana Akufo Addo's recent address to the Tertiary Education Students Confederacy of the NPP (TESCON) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, during which he called for visionary leaders who as he put it 'think big, act big and do big things to develop the country.'

No sooner had the words settled down than Mr. Jamal went on an attacking spree in the media, particularly stating that if it was about intelligence, which for him was the import of the flag-bearer's remarks, a man with a third class like Nana Addo could not be a match for the President who made a first class.

Baba Jamal added that Nana Addo's statements were unrealistic and untenable given the facts on the ground.

He added that there were light years between the two gentlemen, although he deliberately left out the footprints of Nana Addo in public service and the legal profession.

Baba Jamal's remarks had turned out to be embarrassingly untrue, with the government worsening the plight of the deputy minister by directing the correction to another department to handle.

Nana Akufo-Addo's sterling performance in the legal profession is household knowledge, having established one of the most outstanding law practices in the country, Akufo Addo, Prempeh and Co; facts Baba Jamal closed his eyes to.

He has trained many lawyers, some of whom are holding important positions on the bench with many Law Report references.

The deputy minister's remarks often create embarrassments not for him alone but the president, one being the reference to the Number One Citizen's health status.

The President's certificate would remain a subject of discussion in street-side political gossips and radio commentaries for some time to come, with Baba Jamal unquestioningly being the source of it all.

By A.R. Gomda