A member of the Campaign Team of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, the Presidential Aspirant of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said that if the General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) wants education on how one becomes a lawyer, he should contact the Ghana Bar Association, (GBA), the Ghana School of Law or the General Legal Council, for education. Mr. Gabby Asare Otchere Darko was speaking to this newspaper from the United Kingdom Sunday in response to suggestions that Nana Akufo-Addo does not have any certificate to prove that he is a lawyer. The General Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah, had made that suggestion in an interview on Hello FM in Kumasi, an interview that was subsequently published in the Daily Guide, where he challenged Nana Addo to prove his legal qualifications. In that interview, Mr. Asiedu Nektiah is reported to have stated that Nana Addo does not have in his possession either an LLB or LLM, which identifies a person as a first or second degree law holder. Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah was further quoted as saying that Nana Addo has been flying under false pretences all these years for allowing himself to be described as a legal luminary and a qualified legal practitioner. Responding to these accusations, Mr. Otchere Darko said that they were not going to respond to these base suggestions. “The official response is that we don’t want to respond to this. If he wants education on how one becomes a lawyer he should go to the Ghana Bar Association, the English Bar, the Ghana School of Law, or he should go to General Legal Council, and then he would be educated on how to become a lawyer,” he said. He expressed surprise about how anyone could raise this issue at this moment in time after the long and distinguished service that Nana Addo had offered to the legal profession in Ghana, as a former President of the Ghana Bar Association in the Greater Accra region, and an Attorney General, who had practiced in England, France and for many years in Ghana, with most of the most distinguished legal personalities in Ghana being his juniors, such as Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata. “We thought that this election would be about issues. And if it is about a person’s record, then it should be something based on fact. I think that gives greater respect to the Ghanaian. I really don’t think that it is something that we can give any meaningful response,” Mr. Otchere Darko said. “I can appreciate his problems. Maybe not being in the legal profession I can appreciate his difficulty. You need to understand the law to have a basic appreciation of what you have to do to become a lawyer,” he said. Nana Addo’s CV states that he attended Lancing College in Sussex in the United Kingdom and then the University of Ghana, Legon, where he graduated in 1967 with a B.Sc. in Economics. His profession is described as a lawyer who was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971. He was called to the Ghanaian Bar in July 1975, and served as Associate Counsel with Coudert Freres in Paris (France) from 1971 to 1975. He was a Junior Member of the Chambers of U.V. Campbell (1975-79); and Senior Partner and Co-Founder in 1979 with Dr. Edmund Prempeh of the prominent law firm Akufo-Addo, Prempeh and Co in Accra. Source: Daily Searchlight