President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) was not an elitist organization, but an institution that had championed the course of good governance in Ghana since its establishment.
He remarked that recent statements made by some political actors that the GBA is a highbrow association are groundless.
“The association is an institution that has championed the course of good governance in Ghana since its establishment,” the President said when he interacted with a GBA delegation that called on him at the Jubilee House on Tuesday.
The delegation, led by Mr. Yaw Boafo (Bar President) was at the Presidency to thank the President for attending the 2022 ‘Annual General Bar Conference’ in Ho, Volta Region last month.
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President Akufo-Addo said the attempt to put an elitist label on the GBA must be resisted because the association “is one of the non-governmental organizations that needs the support of all its members and the country as a whole to bloom in order to do more for the nation.”
“I hear other people are talking about it [The Ghana Bar Association] being an elite organization. I don’t know what they understand by an elite.
“I know that it is an organization that is concerned about the welfare of the people, the quality of their governance…an organization which has always been prepared and its leaders have been prepared to make the sacrifices that were necessary to make sure that we have a modern and respectable form of governance in our country. This cannot be an elite organization,” he said.
Emphatic that the GBA was an organization that spoke truth to power, President Akufo-Addo noted that the association was one that concerned itself with the issues that affect the ordinary people of Ghana and that “all attempts to paint her black must be resisted.”
“It (The Ghana Bar Association) is an organization that speaks to the interests of the people of Ghana for accountable governance and that is an organization that deserves the support of all right-thinking lawyers in the country,” he said.
The President said the GBA was one of the most important institutions that had had a tremendous impact on the life of the country and on the history of the nation.
He was encouraged by the independence that the GBA had always shown in its utterances, deliberations and interactions, adding, “I cherish that kind of attitude and I think it is important for our country that our public discourse is facilitated by people who have this sort of attitude of making their position on common interest heard and felt”
Mr. Boafo thanked the president for his dedication to the activities of the GBA, saying, “We want to put on record that we’ve never had anybody occupying the high office of President who has shown such commitment to the bar”.
