Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu has questioned the professional and scholarly ethics of the Vice Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as an academic over a foreword she wrote to ‘Working with Rawlings’ a book authored by Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi.
Mr. Amidu who said the book is full of factual inaccuracies and breaches all ethics of acceptable standard of scholarly research or report writing asserted that Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang has put her reputation and integrity on the line by writing a foreword that sought to portray as factual the inaccuracies and ‘irredeemable lies’.
“This is the book which equally portrayed distinguished scholar Naana J. Opoku-Agyemang, PhD/FGA has put her reputation and integrity on the line to the whole world in the foreword…..”
Though he acknowledged that the foreword is not an integral part of the book, the former vice presidential candidate of NDC argued that the author’s intention of inviting her to write a foreword was to ride on her reputation to attract the interest of the public to purchase the book thus it was incumbent on her to protect her reputation and integrity by objectively assessing the veracity of the claims presented in the book.
Mr. Amidu said he is of the firm believe that Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang and others who are presented in the book as witnesses to the events as narrated by the author played the roles of co-authors, editors and reviewers of the book. He suggested that the NDC’s running mate would not have written the foreword to Ahwoi’s book if she were mindful of her professional ethnics as an academic.
“Whilst the foreword is normally not an integral part of the book, no ethical academic will ever write a foreword to a scholarly book without first reading the book to make an objective assessment of its veracity because the writer of the foreword knows the invitation to write the foreword was based on the intention to use his or her reputation to entice the public to invest financial and human resources in purchasing and reading it. In this instance, the writer of the foreword is marketing the book with her credentials of PhD/FGA and has an ethical obligation to the public for integrity and truth in what she says with her credentials in the foreword.” He stated.
Pointing to the falsehoods in the book and seemingly endorsement of same by Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, Mr. Amidu dismissed the narration in the book that Rawlings’ public image was enhanced prior to the 1996 Elections through an interview on Mrs. Opoku-Agyemang’s show on radio Gold describing it as doctored interview while questioning her professional ethics of “collaborating” to author such untruths.
“But wait until we get to examining how she could ethically have collaborated with the author and others to doctor an interview on Radio Gold with the President Emeritus, H. E., Flt Lt. J. J. Rawlings, to the public in 1996 which has shamefully been narrated in the book as a hallmark of integrity,” he further stated.
