‘Resign For An Independent Body To Investigate Your Actions!’

The Academic Registrar of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Dr. Joe Oteng-Adjei has waded into the embarrassing spectre involving the fake professorship of Dr. Stephen Adei, and in the process charged him with academic dishonesty, challenged his methods of administration at the institute and called on him to resign among other injunctions.

In a seven-page memorandum dated Sunday, November 25, 2007 and addressed to Dr. Stephen Adei in his capacity as Rector of GIMPA and copied to the members of GIMPA`s governing Council, the GIMPA management and faculty and the press under the title `Re: Use of Offices During Suspension,` Dr. Oteng-Adjei charges inter alia:

`A culture of academic honesty is very crucial to the realisation of the mission of GIMPA. GIMPA, as a continental leader in the training of leaders and managers, must be committed to academic integrity and should not tolerate any violation of this principle. Academic honesty, the cornerstone of teaching and learning, lays the foundation for lifelong integrity. Academic dishonesty can be defined as an intentional act of deception in which a student or faculty seeks to claim credit for the work or effort of another person or uses unauthorised materials or fabricated information in any academic work. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia on the internet, Academic dishonesty or academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise.

Your action to use the title of Professor constitutes academic dishonesty which has brought the name of our esteemed institute into disrepute and is a form of cheating. You knew you had not gone through the process of being promoted to the position of a professor. You as the Rector know the facts of the process. You have on many occasions encouraged and chastised faculty members for not being aggressive enough to move towards the professorial title. You were part of the team that approved the professor title for Professors Yaw Agyeman Badu and Franklyn Manu. I was at a management meeting when you raised an objection to a professorial title being brought to GIMPA by a new faculty member. You were insisting that the new faculty must resubmit his papers for the approval of the GIMPA Council. Prof. Agyeman Badu and Prof. Manu argued otherwise, indicating the new recruit has been an external examiner for University of Ghana. You know the rules and while you were insisting that others followed the rules, little did we know that you had rudely flouted the rules yourself.

Dr. Stephen Adei, if you are really principled as you project yourself to be, then I respectfully call upon you to RESIGN to pave the way for an independent body to investigate your actions. Please, don`t take the leniency of the Council to be their weakness. The Bible says God will use the same measure with which we judge others to judge us. Please, consider the haste with which you have dismissed and suspended GIMPA staff in the past. Use the same principles to advise yourself by humbly stepping aside for the image of the institute.

You have always presented yourself as infallible and all knowing. Oh, so you can also make mistakes? The directive from the Council clearly shows that you do not have the title. You rubbished the Council in most of your dealings and pronouncements. You have dishonestly called yourself a professor! In academia, this is a gross offence so you must step down. `MENE MENE TEKEL PARSIN,` for you have brought emotional and health stress upon too many children of God (Dan 5:24-28).`

Dr. Oteng-Adjei has been on `suspension` from his position as Academic Registrar of GIMPA in the last three months and over on the ground that he dared to challenge the GIMPA administration as to why some course participants were allowed to write their exam when the examination time table did not state so; without his consent as Academic Registrar.

Whilst on suspension, a memo signed by Dr. Adei and dated the October 25, 2007 was fired to him notifying him that his office will not be available for his use from November 2, 2007 among other actions.

Dr. Oteng-Adjei`s response was to fire the memo to Dr. Adei, parts of which have been quoted copiously in the preceding paragraphs of this story with the following introduction.

`This is to acknowledge receipt of your memo on the above subject matter. Please note that even though the memo was dated 25th October, 2007, it was handed to me on 9th November, 2007. The memo sought to convey the following:

• That the suspension implies that I should cease from using my office on campus for work or any purpose;

• That my office will no longer be available to me from 2nd November, 2007;

• That pending the determination of my case by the disciplinary committee, I will no longer be paid a responsibility allowance.

You may recall that 126 days of being under suspension, I appealed to the Council to intervene to resolve the impasse amicably as per GIMPA`s Act, Act 676 of 2004. Instead of you working to assist the Council to resolve the impasse, you have taken a position to, as it were, `screw` me to know how powerful you are. What is it that you have that God did not give you? GIMPA is a public institute and not your personal entity. Accordingly, there are rules and regulations laid down to ensure that every Ghanaian can work without fear and intimidation from people like you. It would have been fulfilling if you had quoted the relevant and applicable rules and regulations on which you based your decision. Anything short of this means that you are pursuing a personal agenda that I leave the institute....

In one of the James Bond series, It was written that `the first time is happenstance, the second time is coincidence, but the third time is enemy action.`I consider your last memo as an enemy action. Please note that Newton`s 3rd Law on Motion states that action and reaction are equal and opposite. I will henceforth take all necessary precautions in my dealings with you.`

Read the next issue of GO for other damning parts of Dr. Oteng-Adjei`s letter to Dr. Adei.