Mills Had 2nd Class Lower?

The controversy about the grades obtained by Ghana�s President, John Evans Atta-Mills, at the end of his study at the University of Ghana, Legon, rages on with the Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu casting serious doubts over the revised 2nd Class Upper allegedly obtained by President Mills. According to the Minority Leader, information reaching him indicates that President Mills did not obtain a 2nd Class Upper honours degree as put out by the Castle, but rather obtained a 2nd Class Lower after completing the University of Ghana. Mr Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu made this known in an interview yesterday on Oman FM�s �Today�s Agenda�. The Minority Leader stated that the grades obtained by an individual at the tertiary level are not the sole determinants of governing and leadership ability of that person. If this was the case, according to the minority leader, then President Mills has failed woefully in his almost three-year rule of the country, given his academic background. Many reports put out into the public domain by the NDC prior to and in the run up to the 2008 elections about President Mills� purported scholastic prowess stated emphatically that he obtained a First Class in Law from the University of Ghana. However, events of recent days have shown this to be false. The Castle over the weekend tried to douse the flames and undo the �black sheep to white cow� transformation agenda embarked on, unsurprisingly, by Baba Jamal who stated categorically that President Mills obtained a 1st Class honours degree. The deputy Minister of Information made this bold declaration when he stated that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the NPP flagbearer did not have the moral right to talk about intelligence and vision because he obtained a Third Class from the University. According to Baba Jamal, �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 continued, �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 ten years whiles Nana Addo was just a lawyer.� John Boadu, a panelist on the show, stated that Baba Jamal�s statements, without even subjecting them to strict proof, were nothing but mere lies which should be treated with the contempt they deserved. John Boadu stated that first and foremost President Mills and Nana Akufo-Addo never sat in the same class and did not take any courses together during their stay in Legon, as suggested by Baba Jamal. President Mills, John Boadu said, completed the University of Ghana in 1967 whilst Nana Addo completed in 1968 with the latter reading Economics for his first degree and Mills reading Law. The third lie churned out by Baba Jamal, according to John Boadu, has now been shown to be nothing but lies and is now in dispute as per the information from the minority leader. It is on record that as acting head of the Internal Revenue Service for eight years and head of Ghana�s Economic Management Team, tax revenue increased by a meagre 11% under President Mills from $561 million in 1988 to $626 million in 2000; whereas tax revenue under the NPP by the end of 2007 reached $3.4 billion. According to the NPP�s deputy director of communications, the former President of Brazil, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva had little formal education, did not learn to read until he was ten years old, and quit school after the fourth grade in order to work to help his family. However, President Lula implemented a wide array of social programmes never seen in the history of Brazil and he, together with President Kufuor were awarded the 2011 World Food prize for improving food security among the rural poor in their countries during the period they served. John Boadu stated that for a man who obtained third class in university, Nana Akufo-Addo's sterling performance in the legal profession is household knowledge, having established one of the most outstanding law firms in the country, Akufo Addo, Prempeh and Co, facts Baba Jamal closed his eyes to. Nana Addo, according to John Boadu, has trained many lawyers, some of whom are holding important positions on the bench with many Law Report references.