… Vice President had a hand in it?
… Security threat was a bogus excuse
Accra, March 15, 2005 (Chronicle) — The slated honorary Doctorate degree award by the University for Development Studies (UDS) for the former president, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings that sparked off a heated controversy has been cancelled.
The cancellation was upon the directives of the chairman of the University Council, Mr. Daniel Gyimah, citing security considerations.
Mr. Gyimah, who is also the Managing Director of the National Investment Bank (NIB) is an active member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and also a leading member of the Danquah-Busia Club.
Sometime ago, when the Chronicle was investigating an Indian group, ELAN, over alleged shady dealings, Mr. Gyimah, had commandeered BNI operatives to sit in a meeting to interview him, a proposition that our reporter, Mr. Raymond Archer, had rejected.
Mr. Gyimah, a brother of Mrs. Cecilia Johnson, General Secretary of the 31st December Women?s Movement, was also a working colleague of the Chief of Staff, when he worked at the NIB.
In a letter written to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. B.K John Kaburise, the Mr. Gyimah had requested that the congregation be called off assigning security reasons that he had been made aware of.
The Vice Chancellor, who had earlier in an invitation letter to the former President requested him to acknowledge the honour that was to be conferred on him by the UDS, at a Special Congregation on Saturday, March 19, this year, wrote another letter to the office of the former President canceling the programme.
In the letter to the former president, the Vice Chancellor had stated, ?I regret to inform you that the chairman of the University Council has directed that because of national security considerations which he has been made aware of, the special congregation scheduled for Saturday March 19, 2005 be cancelled.?
Source: GhanaWeb
