This October, the University of Ghana, Legon, will be 75.
When I first saw Legon, from its main gate in 1978, it was love at first sight, on my part. And like many such affairs, my heart has been broken many times. Despite spending nearly seven years there, I did not graduate. Since then, I have gone on to earn various qualifications from six other Universities but my journey at Legon that was so sadly interrupted by politics when I was exiled, remains unfinished. But as a friend once said consolingly, “You graduated– in ALUTA!”.
In preparation for this anniversary, there have been lectures and activities at Legon– the hill for the God of the Gas. Our motto was, optimistically, “INTEGRI PROCEDAMUS”.
Seventy five years on, we need to reflect on our motto and determine how well we have lived up to it. So here is one view from a jilted Legonite.
We started well, with a first Principal, David M. Balme, a Cambridge graduate, a war hero and an Aristotelian scholar. Indeed, during his farewell speech at Commonwealth Hall in 1957, he hailed the foundations he had laid. He stated, “Looking back, over what we have been trying to do at Legon, I think it can all be summed up in the words, “setting standards “. — A man cannot be a successful scholar without acquiring certain virtues which are of value outside the University. ” The man who spent his life studying Aristotle, the philosopher who wrote “Politics” believed that the University’s mission was to produce leaders and citizens who would, in Aristotle’s words, ” possess the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and courage”. Men and women who would leave the Halls of Legon to build Ghana, Africa and the world.
But things have turned out differently.
While Legon has produced renowned global academics and professionals and technocrats, we have not produced exemplary citizens–models of our motto.
We joined others in hailing the “Yentua” mantra!
We shouted, “Let the blood flow” with the ignorant masses when we knew better.
And during this 4th Republic, our graduates have shamelessly been in the front ranks of bringing Ghana to her knees.
We have given Ghana 3 of the 5 Presidents of this current republic and many of her judges and institutional leaders and yet integrity has been sorely missing.
Each new scandal is more brazen than the one before it. And when this “yenkyenni” government decided to perform one its most brazen thefts by spraying the empty streets and Halls of Legon as an excuse for looting 500 million Ghana cedis of Covid money, the Legon proffesoriat was there, to give their excuses academic respectability.
Despite the presence of Legal and Business departments, Legon contracted the Africa Integras loan that ended up with 2 former VCs in court, trading undignified accusations.
And in the current, bizarre initiative to destroy one of Legon’s crown jewels, Vandalism, the leadership of the University whose motto is “Integri Procedamus” has not modeled much integrity.
Sadly, even before the 4th Republic, Legon was on the wrong side of history in nation-building.
One of Ghana’s dirty little secrets is that the men and women who provided ideological and intellectual cover for the PNDC dictatorship were for the most part, Legon men and women. Men led by the Tsikatas and the Ahwois. They were there for the curfews, the murders, the sellout to the IMF, whipping women in public and the privatization of state enterprises that were sold at “donkomi” prices to their families and friends.
Surprisingly, Legon started well. Commonwealth Hall led the move towards making Legon one of the first truly great African Universities by rebelling against the high tables, Latin graces and gowns that were adornments that came with British academia.
Then when Danquah died at Nsawam in 1965, while a cowed nation mourned in silence, Vandals rose for a defiant and defining moment of silence in his memory that made Nkrumah apoplectic with rage. And during the struggle against the Archeampong dictatorship, “Accra Legon”, as Archeampong called them, were magnificent. Indeed, for years, the “Legon Observer” was considered the most influential newspaper in Ghana.
Indeed, when I got to Legon in 1980, it still had lots of integrity. I missed my Medical School interview and still got one of the 50 coveted places without any connections. When I was sacked by workers encouraged by the PNDC with 3 other students for leading the protest against the murder of the judges in 1982, Legon said, “no way”.
And in the fight against the PNDC dictatorship, Legon led the forces of democracy with a courage that would have gladdened the hearts of Aristotle and Balme
.
My fellow Legonites, we have fallen short of our motto but we can do better.
Let us start naming and shaming those dishonourables dishonouring our motto and our institution. Let’s call out those selling out Ghana.
Let us start honouring and celebrating our motto– with integrity awards.
Wealth will not build Ghana but character and courage will.
May the lives of our graduates start bearing witness to our motto–“INTEGRI PROCEDAMUS”
Let Legon rise again.
Arthur Kobina Kennedy (4th June, 2023)