12. The Consultant and his Recall to Government

As stated in the previous Chapter, one of the reasons why I left public service in Ghana was to make a decent enough income to enable me to educate our children. January 1, 1977 found me with little means of doing so. Fortunately, I had managed to supervise the building of the house in which we lived at Ablenkpe. At the time it was built, the cost of the construction was a little over 28,000 cedis. Since then the prices of building materials had been rising fast. The debt we incurred in building it was largely discharged while I was in the United States as a Fellow in the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. and a Visiting Professor in the University of Virginia Law School. For persuading and helping me build that house, I have always thanked my colleague and friend, Fred Apaloo, then T. E. (Kweku) Anin, who was the Managing Director of Ghana Commercial Bank, from which I obtained the mortgage loan for the construction and the late Arno Janimaggi, our friend with A. Lang, the Contractors, who by many ways, such as providing the plan, lending me equipment and advising, helped to make the construction as cheap as possible. We also had the house in the Airport Residential Area built with a loan from Ghana Insurance Company, now State Insurance Corporation, which had always been an investment to earn future income and was paying for itself from its rental. I also got, on retirement, a pension and a gratuity of some 30,000 cedis, which was a princely sum at the time. I had for some time been considering how to invest what I thought would be coming to me as gratuity when I retired. Having built a house just over five years before for about the sum that I should expect (on this I had advice on the possible amount from my cousin Lebrecht Chinery Hesse, who was expert at working out entitlements under the Pensions Ordinance), I considered the possibility of building another house. But I knew I could not supervise another building. It was too much hard work outside my line of activity. Besides, I was worried whether having three houses would not, in future, be considered as excessive when my fellow-Ghanaian, in his or her occasional crusade against impropriety in public life, started charging everyone with visible property with having acquired it by stealth or fraud. I decided, therefore, to put the gratuity into the purchase of shares, which the Head of State, Acheampong, pursuant to his policy of “capturing the commanding heights”, had by decree made the established commercial companies to sell to Ghanaians. I even took a loan to add to my gratuity from Standard Chartered Bank to increase my investment. Standard Chartered was making such money available to borrowers for such share purchase. Its Managing Director then, ***~[* missing first name ]~ Carter, was surprised and disappointed that Ghanaians were not availing themselves of this facility. But investment in shares was not part of the culture of Ghanaians at the time. It was not known or well-understood and there was no stock exchange or other market in which a shareholder could sell the shares if he was stuck for money. The commercial banks had a system for putting potential sellers and buyers together. But it was neither well-known nor easy to access. Immovable property in the form of buildings was what was appreciated. As things turned out, some of these investments were to yield a return while others did not. I later came to the conclusion that had I built a house with the gratuity, the returns over the years would have been better.

Prior to my retirement, I had consulted two friends in the business world in the hope of getting on the boards of the companies which they managed. One was Frimpong-Ansah, at the time Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank of Ghana. Frimpong was a banker by profession, who had risen to be Governor of the Bank of Ghana. Many thought that his Governorship coincided with many of the innovations developed by the Bank. I consulted him because when Standard Bank, in the days of the Irish Managing Director, Johnny Johnston, was seeking to privatise part of its capital early in the 1960s, by inviting the Ghanaian public to subscribe for its shares, Johnny had approached me and asked whether I would like to be a director of the Bank. I did express an interest but at the time I had just become a judge and I thought a directorship while I held that position was out of the question. Besides, I had no intention of resigning as a judge just to become a director of the Bank. That Standard Bank seriously thought that I was going to join them at the time is reflected by the fact that after Johnny left, his successor phoned me at least twice asking when I was joining the Bank. I got the impression that he thought I could hold both my appointment as a judge and the directorship of the Bank at the same time. But I told him that I could not become a director as long as I continued as a judge. The Bank went ahead and constituted its new Board after the public invitation to take up shares without me. I did consult Frimpong-Ansah, not because I expected that the position that Johnny Johnston had invited me to take up had been left vacant to take up any time I chose to retire, but because I thought there may be some new vacancy which I could occupy. There was not.

The other person whom I had consulted was David Andoh, then Chairman of UAC of Ghana Ltd., the oldest and largest commercial organisation in the country. David was a lawyer who had worked before in the Civil Service. During the days of the NLC, he had been invited to join the Government as a Commissioner. He was highly regarded and he was a sympathetic friend. He did not promise anything then but, after my retirement, I was invited by him to join the UAC board. One other non-executive director was appointed at the same time as myself. He was Chris Dadey, the agriculturist and former Civil Servant. We had first met in 1950 when I stayed in the flat of my cousin, Fifi Quartey, while he was on study holiday, in Cambridge. Chris Dadey and his wife, as well as Kurankyi Taylor and his wife, were the other tenants in that house. I believe Chris and I were the first non-executive directors appointed to the UAC (Ghana) board.

The other person with whom I had talked about work possibilities, in the future after retirement, was Kwame Pianim, an economist of distinction, who had been trained in the United States and had worked briefly in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. He was now running his own private consultancy, the Management and Development Consultancy Ltd. My expectation in our discussions was that we were to team up together to provide services as an economic and legal consultancy. I had thought that it was going to be a partnership of equals. That was the main occupation which I expected to be engaged in at the time of my retirement.

We were to take up offices at Mango House, the last house built by my father at Asylum Down in Accra. It was the house in which he lived in his last days. It was the house where the family welcomed Stella and myself when we came from England in November 1956. My mother continued to live there for a while after my return but eventually moved out and rented it out. But by 1977, the house had, for some time, fallen into total disrepair. Some highlife band which had painted parts of it in garish colours occupied it. The floorboards were rotten and unattended to. The band had paid no rent for quite some time and, when asked, refused to leave. I undertook to move out the Band and to renovate the building for the occupation of the consultancy which Kwame and I intended to form. Getting the band out was not an easy task. It is always difficult to eject a Ghanaian who thinks he has political or public support from premises he is occupying even though he fails to pay rent and misuses the premises. The law requires that ejection should be with the sanction of the courts. The delays of the courts are phenomenal. Adjournments are often granted for little or no cause. Unscrupulous parties and their lawyers manipulate the system. Court officials, not the best paid of a generally poorly paid public service, can be persuaded with small consideration to misplace, misfile or simply sit on court documents and files; they could also be persuaded not to serve court process documents which is their duty to serve on ridiculous grounds, such as inability to find some of the most prominent persons in town. I have had occasion to write at length on these problems and will not burden this book with them. But the eviction of the band was eventually achieved and the renovation of the house done. My agreement with my family over the use of the building was that as I had spent a considerable amount of money in renovating the house I should occupy it free for some time to recoup the outlay. The occupation of the building by MDCL free of charge for some time was a contribution I was making to the partnership.

By this time, it had become clear that the joint consultancy was not to be. The terms were not to my liking and I decided to try to go it on my own. Kwame and I agreed that MDCL should continue to occupy the top floor of the building and pay rent to my family, while I occupied the ground floor without paying any rent. There was one job which I did under the aegis of MDCL. That was a job for the Bank of Ghana on exchange control. In 1961, after Ghana had adopted its own currency, the cedi, it introduced an exchange control system based on the British Exchange Control Act which had operated during and after the Second World War. Under that regime, every foreign exchange transaction was prohibited unless permitted. So long as Ghana had been part of the sterling area and practically the whole of its international trade was sterling area oriented, there was no need to have a separate exchange control. But once Ghana adopted its own currency, Government thought that such a need arose. But exchange control was never popular. In Ghana, its administration was cumbersome, time consuming and could be capricious. By 1977, a number of notices had been issued by the Bank of Ghana to the commercial banks and the public on permissions and warnings. Complaints of the administration of the system were rife. The Governor of the Bank at the time was Amon Nikoi, my old classmate at Achimota School. He was one of the students who loved the United States. He enjoyed putting himself forward as coming from Omaha in Nebraska. From Achimota, he had gone not to Nebraska but to Amherst College in Massachusetts, and to Harvard University. He became an Executive Director of the World Bank some time after that. He has been a Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Finance while J. H. Mensah was his Minister during the Busia Government. Amon thought that the Exchange Control system needed review. But before anything was done about a review, the Bank needed to know what the current situation was. He felt that nobody could at the time tell what really was the legal effect of the Act nor could anyone tell what the situation under the Act was, having regard to all the exceptions and permissions that had been granted under it. He, therefore, wanted me to do an investigation and report. This was the first job that I had agreed to bring into the partnership. I carried it out accordingly in the partnership name. The result was a draft report which was submitted in 1978.

In the course of the investigation, I found that the Bank of Ghana itself did not have a file on all the permissions that it had granted. It was, therefore, unable to furnish me with a list or the material on all the permissions. I managed to secure as complete a set of the notices which the Bank of Ghana had issued to the commercial banks and the public from Standard Chartered Bank. Standard Chartered allowed me the use of accommodation at their headquarters and gave me all its files on Bank of Ghana notices under the Exchange Control Act. For that, I was immensely grateful. Apart from this valuable resource, the Bank of Ghana arranged for me to visit the Bank of England to learn about the operation of the British Act. I spent about a fortnight at the Bank of England, during which I had an intensive series of discussions with the officials on the Bank. I remember one occasion when I wanted to take part of an afternoon off, permission for this was granted with great difficulty.

I submitted the draft report to the Bank of Ghana with the understanding that it would let me have its views on it before I finalised the report. I never heard from the Bank after that. I was surprised when some eighteen years later I was in Ghana with two lawyers from the Commonwealth Secretariat, Kofi Date-Bah and Makbul Rahim, engaged in a diagnostic survey of the laws of Ghana which impeded investment. Makbul and I had an appointment with the Bank to discuss their perspective of the subject, when, in the lift going up to the office where the appointment was to be held, I ran into one of the Bank's officials who told me that my report on Exchange Control was still being used by the Bank. A year later, one of the Bank's lawyers, Dr. Addeah, asked why I would not do an update of the report as the Bank found it so useful. I was both flattered and interested in doing this and said I was certainly interested in undertaking such a task, if officially requested. Dr. Addeah again repeated in March 1999 how useful the report done more than twenty years ago was the only text the Bank has on Exchange Control. But by this time my interest was in doing a completely new report, based on the same lines for a new Exchange Control Act which had been in the process of presentation to Parliament for enactment for the previous three years, without emerging as an Act. In 1996, the Commonwealth team of lawyers had sight of a draft new Act which proceeded on a course directly opposite to the 1961 Act. That Act had been based on the principle that every currency exchange act was prohibited unless specifically permitted. The new enactment which was more in line with a liberal investment climate which Government had undertaken to establish, permitted, with a very few exceptions, every currency exchange act unless it was expressly prohibited.

Once I had decided not to proceed with a partnership with Kwame Pianim, I needed to market myself. This is a thing for which my natural make-up, inclination and previous experience in the law, made be totally unsuitable. I had never begged anybody for any job and I was not anxious or comfortable in starting to do so now. But through an introduction of my cousin Nii Quartey, the Chief Executive of the VRA, I met the head the Italian Company, Impregilo, which was going to build the Kpong Dam and I became a legal consultant to Impregilo. Kwame Tetteh, the youngest brother of my old friend from Oxford days, Kofi Tetteh and who had been one of the earliest graduates from the Faculty of Law at Legon, was also acting as a lawyer for Impregilo. So we co-operated in this matter. That was not the only client that Kwame Tetteh and I had in common. We also had Social Security Bank as a client. Apart from that, I did the research and write-up of some briefs for him to use in argument before the Appeal Courts. That was a service I also once did for the firm of Lynes & Quashie-Idun, at the request of Johnnie Quashie-Idun. Had I remained long as a Consultant in Ghana, research and brief writing for other Counsel to use in appeal cases would have been one of the major planks that I would have liked to specialise in. I did not think that I should myself appear as counsel in cases before the Courts. I was aware of the questions which were raised when A. A. Akainyah, after his removal from the Bench during the NLC regime, decided to appear as Counsel in the Courts. In any event, I did not think that court appearances were, in my circumstances, appropriate and I decided not to raise the issue.

With my stepping down from the judiciary, I lost any official position which I held by virtue of my judgeship. My tenure as the Chairman of the Council for Law Reporting, therefore, came to an end. But Ebenezer Tetteh, who had joined me as my official driver when I was appointed a judge in 1966, decided to continue with me. I also had to organise my own office. In this, I was lucky in having Victoria (Vic) Tamakloe as my secretary. She soon learnt my ways and we got on very well together. Vic became interested in investing in shares and I remember our arguing about the merits of buying into Texaco, which I did, and her buying into Mobil Oil, which she did. The other aspect of a lawyer's practice, in my view, was the building up of a good library. And I set about this in earnest, ordering books from the English law publishers, Sweet and Maxwell and Butterworths; the American publishers, Oceana, West and Matthew Bender; and the Dutch publishers, Kluwer and Libresso. I also ordered journals on international taxation which, with my exposure to the subject with the UN Group on Tax Treaties between Developed and Developing Countries, I hoped would be an area in which I could develop and deliver some expertise. When I look at my library of law books in Ghana some twenty five to thirty years later, I am impressed with the choice of books that I made. A number of them, especially the journals, I had to get rid of when I later relocated in the U.K. Some of them have undergone subsequent editions. They all represented hopes, some of which were never realised. Ghana was then engaged mostly in trade; attendant to this was a lively practice in trade marks and registration of designs which was mostly done by the Ghanaian law firms which took over the practice of the two major companies, Giles Hunt, which was taken over by Kudjawu & Company, and Cridland & Lynes, which became Lynes & Quashie-Idun. There was little investment, whether domestic or foreign being made; nor was there much by way of other commercial or financial legal matters arising. In any case, the legal infrastructure for an active commercial or financial market had not been laid.

Another problem I anticipated in venturing into private practice was the charging of fees. Having been in the Attorney-General's Office and followed it up with a term on the Courts and at the University, I was totally unused to charging fees of anybody. I recognised that not every potential client who approached me had the same ability to pay the same level of fees. In my father's day, and long after, lawyers charged clients according to how they felt. There were no rules. This had prevailed, more or less to the time that I came to practice in Ghana. I have already retold the story, which I heard from Kwaw Swanzy, of the client who approached Robert Hayfron-Benjamin who charged a fee that he, Benji, thought was reasonable but then followed a long debate about over a request for a substantial reduction asked for by the client, which led to Benji declining to take the case, followed by the client then approaching Kwaw, who had charged a fee several times larger than what Robert charged and all that the client asked for was a reduction of the charge from the figure in guineas to the same figure in pounds. Obviously some clients judged a lawyer's ability by the amount the lawyer charged. The amount charged depended on what the client and/or his family, or in the case of a Stool dispute, what the Stool, could bear. Later, with insurance cases, some lawyers practised the salvage principle of no cure no pay but if there was a cure they charged a percentage, which could amount to as much as a third of the compensation awarded by the insurance company to the client. This, the General Legal Council under Chief Justice Akufo Addo, frowned upon and attempted to stamp out. It was one of the causes of the unpopularity of the Chief Justice with the Bar.

In England, when I was a pupil in Chambers, it was the Clerk of the Chambers who determined the fee. In this question of fee-determination, I took very little interest because whilst a pupil, I had no cases of my own to deal with and I knew that, in any case, my future life would be one which involved no charging of personal fees. But it seemed to me that the Clerk determined the fee to be charged by a consideration of a bundle of factors, including the standing of the barrister who was to do the case, how busy he was, the nature and complexity of the case and its possible duration. If the case involved court appearances, the fee may consist of a fixed fee for doing the case and a daily refresher relating to the number of days actually taken by the trial. I also knew that apart from the regulated fixed charges made by solicitors, some charged by the hour for the actual work done, a practice which also obtained in the United States and other common law jurisdictions. But I had grave misgivings as to whether all clients or even the type of consultancy that I was endeavouring to establish could be treated the same way in the matter of fees. In the end, some of the work that I did was paid for on a lump sum basis; that, for example, was the way that the Bank of Ghana work was charged for. Some were charged by the hour. In some cases where I had a retainer, the usual arrangement was to have the retainer fee which was paid anyway and then any work done within the retainer period would first be deducted from the retainer payment, with any extra work being separately charged for. But there were many consultations which I gave free of charge. These were mainly for family, friends and even people whom I knew casually, or in one or two cases, people whom I did not know at all. I remember one instance when someone I had never seen before, who did not look affluent had come to the office to consult me. After I had given him the advice he required, he asked how much he had to pay. He was astounded when I said it was all right, he need not pay anything. For a while, he sat before me insisting that he must pay something. I had some difficulty in getting rid of this obviously unhappy man.

One other major consultancy that I got was to do a study of the patent systems of various countries with a view to introducing an appropriate patent system in Ghana. The commission came from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Professor ***~[* missing first name ]~ Tackie, formerly of the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi, was then the head of CSIR at the time. In a discussion with him, I found that CSIR had for some time been interested in the establishment of a patent system in Ghana which went beyond the then existing colonial system which made only patents granted in the United Kingdom registrable in Ghana. Of course, this had been introduced under an Ordinance before independence. The only change we had made since was to take out the registration of pharmaceutical patents from the list of registrable inventions. A move which was intended to permit the copying of generic equivalents of patented pharmaceuticals, which some countries found to the advantage of developing countries, but which the countries which had the stronger inventive portfolios in that sector argued was a disadvantage to developing countries as they were necessarily excluded from the benefits of investments and technical information. Whatever the merits of the opposing arguments, the system of registration which Ghana operated, did not encourage inventiveness in Ghana. If a Ghanaian scientist invented a thing in Ghana he would have to patent it in the U.K. first before he could register it and thereby obtain protection for the invention in Ghana. One occasionally heard of a Ghanaian who had had a patent granted in, for example, Canada for an invention which would be of use to Ghana. Why should he not patent it in Ghana? I was interested in doing the research for CSIR. Now CSIR had a backer who would finance the research and it was keen to take advantage of it by employing me to undertake the study. The backer was the USIS, which was prepared to fund a travel arrangement for the study of different patent systems of which should be of interest to Ghana. But the USIS was interested, at first that the research be done by a scientist, A position it relented when it finally agreed that I should take on the research but should be joined by a scientist. Professor Tackie recommended Dr. Sodzi, a ***, of the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi for that role. The research team was thus set.

Our sponsors also agreed two foreign travel itineraries. On the first trip, we were to visit Geneva in Switzerland, where the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was based; Israel; India, and; Kenya. The reason for the selection of Geneva was obvious. We were there to have a discussion with the members of the section of WIPO dealing with developing countries and they are to map out the strategies for our visits to the other countries. Thus, we discussed which institutions we should visit it the various countries, whom to see and what materials we should look for. We also discussed with WIPO the possibility of collaboration in the production of a report and a draft Patent Act. The other countries were chosen as developing countries which had a patent system which would be of interest to us.

This first trip started at the end of April 1978. I remember that time well because our set itinerary was that we got to Delhi in May and the Indian High Commissioner, ***, whom friends called Muthu, was anxious that I should avoid Delhi during that season. She forecast that it would be unbearably hot. Why did I not choose some sane period like August to October to visit Delhi, when the weather would be more clement? I pointed out to her that I was not my own master in this endeavour, and that I had masters who were paying for me and whose agenda was that I should visit Delhi in May. However hard I try, I do not recollect doing anything together with Sodzi on this first travel. I seem to think that he was otherwise engaged at the University in Kumasi at this time so I had to make the trip alone. I first visited Geneva. At WIPO, my host was to be Roger Harben, then the head of the Development Division. He was most helpful in his suggestions as to what we should do in our investigations. He immediately became a friend and a valued collaborator in our research. I had one other advantage. James (Yoku) Quashie-Idun, whom I have mentioned earlier as the younger son of Sir Samuel Okai Quashie-Idun, the famous judge and friend of my family, whose services to the law were rendered not only in Ghana (or the Gold Coast) but also in Western Nigeria and East Africa from the 40s to the middle 60s, was also working with Roger Harben in WIPO. I, therefore, had an old friend in court from whom I received every assistance which I needed.

From Geneva, I went by Swissair to Tel Aviv. The security at Geneva for this flight was very tight. The passengers went through the normal security checks which were done for ordinary flights but, this time, there were more soldiers around adding to the intimidating atmosphere. Then we were bused to a very remote part of the Airport. I thought we were merely to board the flight there. To my surprise, I found that our entire luggage was assembled in a security shed. Each had to identify his or her luggage and open it up for a thorough search by security agents. We were only able to board the plane after everyone had gone through this procedure. On arrival at Tel Aviv Airport, we again went through a rigorous questioning and search. Not having anything of interest to security, I found myself at times giving frivolous answers to some of their questions. Often, before questioning or searching a visitor, the interrogator would ask whether the visitor knew why they are doing so. Eventually, he ends up by saying that whatever is being done is “in your own interest”. After all these questions and searches, I was picked out from the line of arrivals proceeding to join the Airport bus and asked further questions about where I came from and such-like questions.

I spent a few days in Israel. My work was mainly in Jerusalem but I stayed at a hotel in Tel Aviv. I found that many people who worked in Jerusalem also lived in Tel Aviv and commuted daily from home to work. Although the Government was installed in Jerusalem at this time, all the foreign Embassies, for example, except I believe the Dutch, were based in Tel Aviv. This was because those governments whose Embassies were located in Tel Aviv did not accept Israel's claim that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. Our first official visit was to the Ministry of Justice which was the Ministry responsible for the administration of the Israeli patent law. There I found that the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry with whom we had discussions was ***~[* missing first name ]~ Gabay, who had been part of the original secretariat attached to the UN Committee on Double Taxation between Developed and Developing Countries when it was established in 1968. Israel had a very old~[* world “old” was missing and assumed ]~ patent law but a sophisticated patent system. It was a great deal more advanced than the registration system then operative in Ghana. Patents were granted after examination. Government actively sponsored and supported industrial research and there were established mechanisms for the exploitation of inventions by industry. It was a system which I thought Ghana could learn from. I collected materials in the form of legislation and publications on the working of the patent system. Gabay arranged that we should visit the Weizmann Institute of Science, their research institution in Rehovoth. I did and learnt of the subsidiary company which the institution had for the marketing and exploitation of inventions emanating from the institution.

I had too many interests in Israel to make the visit an all-work visit. I wanted to see some of the biblical places, like Bethlehem and Nazareth. It was pointed out to me that Bethlehem was in the Arab area. But my hosts were keen on my seeing Israel and were happy to show us around. I was taken to see the Knesset and the sacred places of the Jews, the Moslems and the Christians like the Wailing Wall, the Al Akbar Mosque in Jerusalem and the shrine of the nativity of Jesus in Bethlehem. I was also taken to the memorial of the holocaust in Yadvashem, which I found most depressing. Seeing the religious places in their close proximity conveyed a powerful impression of Israel as the centre of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As claims to human action, however extreme, were often justified on grounds of a belief in their religious righteousness, one obtained a better understanding of the depth of the problems raised by the conflicting and competing tenets of those three religions.

The economic achievements of Israel must have impressed the political leaders of Ghana so much that many Israeli organisations were invited to help establish equivalents in Ghana after independence. Histadrut, the Israeli trade union organ, was invited to help establish the trade union system; Zim, their shipping line, was invited to help establish Ghana's Black Star Line; Israeli construction company and water resources company were invited to help in the establishment of the State Construction Corporation and to help with water resources. They were in the diamond market. There was a suspicion that some helped with security matters. Many Israelis visited and worked in Ghana and made friends there. Stella and I knew quite a few of them. As a result, I had friends in Israel whom I wanted to see on this visit. Above all, I wanted to see Naaman and Peta Stavy, who were neighbours of ours in the Ringway Estate behind the State House in the early 1960s. Naaman had been the head of an Israeli agricultural team developing a farm at Akatsie in the Volta Region. He often visited the area. Peta and Stella met at the Ridge Hospital when Stella was attending a pre-natal clinic held by Dr. Kwesi Bensi-Enchill at the time when our son, Ralph, was expected. After that we saw the Stavys many times. To my surprise when I started asking about Naaman Stavy, everyone I asked apparently knew him but they always said, “Oh, you mean the policeman”. At first I disputed this, but later I had to accept it with the unanimity of the identification. Especially, as the Stavy's address in Beniamina, a village in the north of Israel coincided with the address which those persons I asked gave for “the policeman”. We had to spend a weekend in Israel as we could not get any flight over that time for India. The person who was assigned to look after us was very keen to accompany me to Beniamina. I pleaded that that was an unnecessary imposition on his time. No, he said, it would be his pleasure to take me to the Stavys.

So, we went together to Beniamina of the Friday afternoon. True enough, the person to whom he delivered me was Naaman Stavy, my old friend. I asked him about this policeman identity which everyone gave him. It was true that he had been a policeman before but that was a long time ago, he said. It was during the transition between the British administration of Palestine and the establishment of the State of Israel. My “minder” had what seemed to me to be his unexpected reward for taking me to Beniamina. The Stavys were friends of the sister of Ezer Weitzman, the Israeli General and politician, later to become the President. She was visiting the Stavys when we got there. Apparently, my minder had been at school with this lady and had secretly admired her during that time. He was indeed delighted to see the lady again, though after he had left us, I asked the lady whether she remembered him and, with a toss of her head, she said, there were so many admirers, she could not remember them all. I stayed over the weekend. They took me to Nazareth for lunch with an obviously rich Arab family. I think this was intended to convey several lessons to me. It showed me that there were Arabs living happily and comfortably in Israel, that they had Jewish friends, as indeed, Jews like Stavy did have Arab friends. The Stavys drove me to the old ruined city of Caesaria by the sea. We also visited a kibbutz. It was, in all, an enjoyable weekend. Going around by train to Beniamina and driving around from there made one aware of how small Israel was as a country. On the other hand one could not but be impressed with the skill and effort which had enabled them convert what must have before been arid land into thriving vast fruit and vegetable fields. I wondered how they managed to irrigate so much of their land.

I learnt that the last of the three Stavy daughters, Shoshi, who must have been four or five years old when they were in Ghana and played with Ralph as a child, was now a sergeant in the Israeli military and was in Tel Aviv, where I was based. The Stavys also phoned ***~[* missing first name ]~ Granot, who had been with the Israeli water development company in Ghana when the Stavys were there, and was now with living in a town mid-way between Beniamina and Tel Aviv to come to collect me and take me first Tel Aviv. This may have been pure kindness, as indeed it was, but one cannot help feeling by now that that it was their system of security that I should be accompanied by a safe hand wherever I went in the countryside. Granot did come to fetch me. Of course, I was happy also to see him. We drove first to his home where we had a meal and then to Tel Aviv.

That night, I was in bed just about to sleep when the telephone rang. It was Shoshi Stavy. She wondered whether I would come with her to a nightclub. She was moving with her unit the next day and could not see me otherwise. I was sorry but did not feel inclined to getting up and dressing to go out to a night-club at that time as I had had a full day and had a programme the next day. In any case, I did not enjoy night-clubbing. We had a long chat on the phone to bring ourselves up to date on families and other matters of mutual interest. But I regretted later that I had not taken the opportunity to see her. As Stella said, you could have invited her for a drink at your hotel before she went to her nightclub.

Another Israeli friend whom I wanted to see was Simcha Gafny, my colleague on the UN Committee on Tax Treaties between Developed and Developing Countries. He was in semi-retirement but, I believe, still managing a commercial bank at the time. His son was the Governor of the Central Bank of Israel. He was kind enough to invite me to dinner at his apartment. We talked of old “friends” on the Committee.

The other people with whom I spent some time were not Israeli but Dutch. They were the Arienses, who had been in Ghana in the early 70s. Krick Ariens was Ambassador of the Netherlands to Ghana. He and his wife, Roberta, had been very gracious hosts to many Ghanaian friends. Krick joined with a number of Ghanaians to play tennis on Wednesdays at the court in the residence of his second in command, Joris Vos, later to become Ambassador to Australia, then the Soviet Union and then Ambassador to Russia and to a number of the States into which the Soviet Union broke afterwards. After being Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he became Ambassador to the United States. But these were early days for Joris. I got in touch with the Arienses when I arrived in Israel. They were living in Jerusalem and invited me to dinner a couple of times and also took me on one occasion to a hospital to which the people of Holland had sent a planeload of tulips. Holland maintained very close relations with the Israelis at the time and, as stated earlier, it was the only country which had its Embassy in Jerusalem. Krick asked how the Wednesday tennis group was going. I told a long story of how the group continued to thrive after Joris Vos was replaced by Jaap de Hoop Schaffer. The group had at various times included Kwame Pianim, who was so strong, he played singles with Jaap before the rest of us turned up to join them in our usual doubles games; Francis Nkrumah, a paediatrician specialist and son of our first Prime Minister and President, later to become a Professor of the Medical School and head of the Noguchi Institute; the late Kwamena Phillips, a delightful companion and diplomat; Kofi Annan, a diplomat, then on assignment with the Tourist Company in Ghana, later to become Secretary-General of the United Nations; Issa Egala, a paediatrician specialist, then with the Police Hospital, Roger Korsah, a judge of the High Court, later to be judge of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe; Miguel Ribeiro, a lawyer in private practice; Osafo Sampong, a lawyer with the Attorney-General's Office; Commander Kyeremeh, a naval officer, but then, I believe a member of the Government with responsibility for the Cocoa Marketing Board; and myself. But when Jaap was in turn succeeded by Christian Kroner, he put an end to the group with the cryptic remark that “friends are made, not inherited”. Roberta asked who this was and, when I told her, she summarily dismissed him by saying, “oh, he is not important”. Kroner's remark, though unimpeachable in this case, later caused him some embarrassment. He did not know who those using the tennis court in his residence were. He had obviously come in with the idea of making his own life without interferences from the past. When he later learnt who we were, he asked Kwame Pianim to persuade us to come back to his court. Not one of us accepted. By then, some of us were using the court of the Canadian High Commissioner down the road.

After our intensive work, sightseeing and social visits in Israel, Sodzi and I left for India. I did not know so many people in India. I had lost all touch with the Indians whom I met in Oxford, like Anandraman, Dershi Malhotra, Venkatswaran and Ajmani. The last two, I occasionally enquired about and was aware that they had risen very high in the Indian Foreign Service. With George Isaac, who married the Swede, Cecilia Philipson, with whom many students lost their heart, Stella and I kept in desultory touch after he had returned to India. But he was nowhere near Delhi as his base was in Kerala. We got to know Amrik Mehta when he was the Indian High Commissioner in Accra quite well but he had got a job with UNIDO in Vienna after Ghana and I did not think it worthwhile finding him in New Delhi. Of course, Muthu was still in Ghana. I should have tried to find Justice Khanna with whom I toured Australia in 1975 as soon as we got to New Delhi. I knew that he had retired from the Supreme Court but my enquiries started late. When I got his home address, I was about to leave so I sent him a card instead. On my return to Accra, I got a very kind letter from him regretting that he had not been able to see me in New Delhi.

We learnt in New Delhi that there was an even bigger patent office in Calcutta and we were asked whether we were going to visit it. But our itinerary was tightly drawn, with no allowance being made for a detour. So we did all our business in New Delhi. Again we visited the Government offices dealing with patents and we were informed and armed with documents on the Indian patent system. India was more aggressive in its limitation of exclusive patent rights and had a greater suspicion of the intentions and activities of multinational corporations than Israel. The patent laws and practices reflected these attitudes. We visited research institutions and observed India's approach to the matching of inventiveness with the utilisation and exploitation of inventions by industry. The system and the research in progress was one end of the remarkable range of technology which India exhibited. It is a country which had some of the most sophisticated technology in the world and, at the same time, some the most undeveloped. That seemed to be matched by the extreme wealth and the extreme poverty in the land.

As Muthu had predicted, New Delhi was very hot. The temperature throughout our stay was in the 40s centigrade. I had never before experienced such heat. There were people, obviously employed by the municipal authorities, who kept throwing water on the sidewalks to reduce the effect of the heat. The water sizzled; the effect was fleeting. Apart from this great heat, the most vivid impression one comes away with is the teeming population on the streets, especially in Old Delhi. We were also impressed with the size of the residences of the high office holders. We were taken on a sightseeing tour of the Taj Mahal at Agra. The architecture was indeed breathtaking. It is difficult to conceptualise the difficulties which must have confronted the builders of such an edifice and the ingenuity and time they needed to overcome these construction obstacles. One comes away with a mixed sense of awe, elation and numbness after the viewing.

I phoned the Ghana High Commissioner and sought an interview. He was happy to receive me in his office. I mentioned that I was on my way out of India but I wanted to spend a day in Bombay before flying on to Nairobi. He said he had an Indian friend in Bombay whom he would ask to look after me when I was in Bombay and immediately phoned the friend. He happily announced when he put down the receiver that everything was arranged. His friend would meet me at the Airport and take me to my hotel. As we expected that I might be the only black arrival at the time, he said his friend would look out for me. I duly arrived at Bombay Airport at about midday. I kept a keen lookout but saw no one interested in me. After seeing practically all who arrived with me on the flight, I thought I should take a taxi to my hotel and ring the friend from there. It was fortunate that I had at least his work number. When he heard me on the phone, he asked how I came and I replied that I arrived by the flight the High Commissioner told him about. “But I was at the Airport looking for you and never saw you”, he said. So we arranged to have dinner together. He would collect me from the hotel lobby where I should be at the arranged time. In he walked at that time. I was the only hotel guest in the lobby. He looked at me in disbelief. “You?” he queried. “But I saw you at the Airport this morning? I did not approach you because you looked like an Indian to me.” Apparently, I could pass as an Indian from the South but it was the first time I had heard so. Had I known beforehand, I would have made the High Commissioner give better particulars about my looks to him.

My next task was to observe the patent system in Kenya. There was nothing new to see there. Kenya had the same system of registration of UK patents as we had in Ghana. My only new experience was a meeting with their legendary Attorney-General, Charles Njonjo. He fitted the advance publicity I had of him: immaculately turned out in his three-piece suit and gold chain. He was surprised to see me. He had been told in advance that a retired judge of the Court of Appeal was coming to see him and he expected a man of a certain advancement in age. His greeting expressed his surprise. “But you are too young!” he announced. We had a general chat about why I had come to Kenya, the similarity between the current patent systems of Kenya and Ghana as well as the office of the Attorney-General. After our meeting, I was ready to return to Ghana.

I made a full report of the work aspect of my travels to both Tackie of CSIR and the USIS. They approved and agreed on the next stage of travelling. This time Sodzi did accompany me. We were to visit the patent offices in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Washington D.C. in the U.S., Ottawa in Canada and Stockholm in Sweden.

We went to Rio through New York. I found the journey long and trying. Rio was indeed an exhilarating city. We stayed in a hotel at Copacabana. The routine was the same as I had pursued before. Visits to the Government patent offices to be instructed on the patent system in Brazil and to such other institutions connected with patenting to give us a picture of how Brazilian patenting worked. Like India, Brazil was anxious that a grant of patent must result in the patent being worked within the country. This approach, of course, Brazil must have adopted as protection from its powerful American neighbour, the U.S., from which most applications for patents emanated. The rules made it necessary that if a patent was not worked in Brazil by the holder, compulsory licences must be granted to persons who wanted to work it within the country.

We knew no one in Rio. My old Achimota School companion, Vishnu Wassiamal, was our Ambassador to Brazil, but he was based miles away in Brasilia. I spoke to him by phone and he suggested that we should visit Brasilia. But once more, the tightness of our schedule did not allow such a deviation. We had met some Brazilian diplomats, particularly ***~[* missing first name ]~ Carvahlo, with his Finnish wife, Anneli, when they were in Ghana but if he was now in Brazil, like Vishnu, he would be in Brasilia. Pipsi Samasa-Meyer, another Brazilian whom we knew in Ghana, was even less likely to be traced. The last time I saw him was unexpectedly in Placette, a department store in Geneva, as usual with a lovely young girl less than half his age on his arm. But we were looked after by a kind German patent expert, ***,~[* name lost? ]~ who was working in the Patent Office. I later kept up communication with him and went once, when he had returned to the European Patent Office in Munich to see him. It was on that visit to Munich that I met my classmate at St. Bees, B. H. Cawthra, who had become a patent lawyer and written several books on the subject. Our free time was, therefore, our own to organise and enjoy. Stepping across the street from our hotel, we were on the beach. In the mornings, the women crowded the beaches taking their exercises. We went to sit out there one day after work. I had my camera by my side. Suddenly I found my camera moving slowly by itself over the beach sand in a direction towards by back. When I turned round to grab it, I found the camera at the end of a string which was being maneuvered by a boy on a bicycle. Fortunately, I was able to rescue the camera but the boy rode off very quickly on his bike. Rio was remarkable for the proximity at times of its lovely housing with the unsanitary shacks of the poor known as favellas. Sodzi and I once thought of taking a bus ride on one of the buses to the end of its run and returning. When we told someone later about our adventure, which was quite uneventful and enjoyable, his face took on a look of alarm. Apparently, we should not have gone where we went. At night, Copacabana and Ipanema lit up and throbbed with music. This lightness of spirit was mixed with a certain catholic religiousness exemplified by its churches around.

Our next port of call was Washington D.C. The U.S. Patent Office is in the suburbs of Washington, in Virginia. For the first time that I could remember, I not stay with friends in Washington. Sodzi and I stayed at a hotel within walking distance of the Patent Office. It is needless to say that the U.S. Patent Office was the largest, the most sophisticated, by way of personnel and equipment, of the Patent Offices I had visited or was to visit. They had a very large turn-over; they patented some inventions, like plant products, which other countries did not give patents on. We knew that their system was too grand and sophisticated for us in Ghana. But of course, being supported by grants from the U.S. Government, there was no way by which we could avoid a visit to this Patent Office.

From there we went to Ottawa. John Ryan, who was Australian High Commissioner in Ghana when I first visited Australia to attend the Commonwealth Conference in Sydney and the Law Ministers' meeting in Canberra thereafter, and continued in Ghana over the period of the overthrow of Nkrumah, was the Australian High Commissioner in Canada then. He and Pat invited me to stay with them while we were in Ottawa. But I missed seeing him. He had to leave earlier on the day that we arrived in Ottawa to be in time to attend the opening by the Queen, of the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton that year. Had I known that before, I certainly would have tried to make arrangements to arrive earlier so that I would see him. But I did not know until we got to Ottawa, where Pat met me at the Airport and had me safely installed in their residence and then she also left to join John at the Games. But staying at the residence at the time was John's eighty-year old mother, with whom I watched the Games when I came back from work. I was so impressed with her when she said in a moment of enthusiasm that she would be watching the Games again in another four years. I never saw John again after that. He died rather early in life. We wrote to Pat after that but never got a reply.

The visit to Canada was, to me, the most fruitful in our quest for information to help us decide on the patent system to propose for Ghana. The Canadians had a great love-hate economic relationship with the U.S. They felt that the U.S. was out to take them over and did all they could to keep their industry, manufacturing and research under their control. To visit Canada after the U.S. always conveyed to me a sense of peace and reduced pace of life. Our Canadian contact was the Deputy Minister responsible for patent matters, who gave us as much time, information and help as we wanted and even more. He saw to it that all doors were open to us. Canada as well as Australia and Eire have always been held up to us as the drafters of good simple legislation. A Canadian legislation compared with a U.S. equivalent is as often as easy to read and understand as its American equivalent is. The Canadian legislation and other documentation which we received to study were much to our liking. We again visited their research institutions and had instructive discussions on the relation of research, inventions and industry.

Our old friend, Jean Steckle, was in Ottawa at the time and was living in her beautiful condominium, which I visited.

From Canada, Sodzi and I flew to Stockholm. Scandinavia has always seemed to me to be a sane part of the world. Things were much quieter than in the Americas. But there was always the feeling that Scandinavia was outside the orbit of a country like Ghana, which had relatively little to do with it. Personally, I had an advantage in Stockholm, because Inger, Stella's sister, and her daughter, Ingela live there. So I was with family. We went through the same exercise as we had done in the different countries. That completed our tour of inspection. As Stella and children were in Kimito in Finland, I continued there to join them. I had no visa for the visit to Finland. When I got to Abo (Turku), the second, or is it now the third, city in Finland, on the overnight ferry, the immigration officials proved very difficult and were on the point of sending me back on the boat to Stockholm. Fortunately, Stella had been driven to the harbour by her brother Rainer to meet me. Together, they managed to persuade the authorities to let me in. They did so with the appearance of some reluctance, asking me to report to the Police when I got to Kimito.

It was the year when Bob and Anna Bennett drove to visit us in Kimito and spent some time with us both in the family house in Tingsbacka and at Snackvik, the summer cottage by the sea.

The travels abroad had given me much knowledge of the patent systems of the various countries visited. They had also provided a wonderful opportunity to see old friends. On our return to Ghana, we set about writing our report. I wrote the main report to which I attached a draft of a Patents Bill. Sodzi made his comments which I embodied in the report as far as I could. But he also wished to have his own addendum, which was the scientist's approach to the patent system, included in the report, to which I agreed. The draft report was first sent to Roger Harben for comments. He wrote a very kind letter of approval, with a few comments for consideration, which were taken into account and the report was presented simultaneously to the CSIR and USIS. Thereafter, I gave a public lecture under the auspices of the CSIR at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences based on the work we had done. At the lecture, I realised, from no less than some of the Ghanaian scientists present, that there would be some opposition to the establishment of a modern patent system in Ghana. They were not concerned that Ghana had some form of a patent system which consisted of registration of patents granted in the UK to give the patent-holders the same rights in Ghana as had been conferred on them by the U.K. patent in the U.K. That this in a way was an aspect of colonialism did not bother them. In their view, a modern patent system was unnecessary at this stage of our development. We should allow ourselves the liberty to copy any invention that we liked. That was the way to rapid advancement. They cited Japan as a country which had attained its present industrial eminence by copying other countries' inventions and advocated that we should follow the same course. They obviously were not impressed by the argument that venturing into a copying exercise would bring upon us the wrath of those countries whose patents we copied, nor were they impressed with the fact that all countries with patents to protect would try to exclude Ghana from the knowledge which would otherwise be available through the disclosure required to be given by a patented invention. It probably did not strike them that the condition for which they advocated was the system which had prevailed since independence in Ghana and yet they had not managed to copy anything for our benefit, which would have been the best support for the position they took. Despite their opposition, I thought that, with WIPO's endorsement given to the work, Government would nevertheless take it up and try to push through the draft legislation. Nothing was done. Like one of the many reports submitted to Government, it was allowed to lie on a shelf to gather dust. It was not until 1994 that a modern patent Act was enacted in Ghana. By then, I was based in London and I first heard the news when I ran into the Registrar-General, Dominic Mills, in Hatchards, the lawyers' bookshop in London. It was flattering to hear from him that the Act passed was basically what I had drafted in 1978 with a few amendments. But, by then, the TRIPS section of the World Trade Organisation, which deals with intellectual property was about to out date it.

Thus, with my mixed bag of legal work, attending at UAC board meetings and at Valco Trust meetings, trying to complete my books on Criminal Procedure and the Contribution of the Courts to Government~[ check that that is all the content that was missing here ]~ I managed to occupy my time as a legal consultant. I was allowed to confer some benefit of Ghana for the knowledge I had been permitted to glean from my many attendances at the UN Committee on Double Taxation between Developed and Developing Countries by being called upon to advise on the Double Taxation Agreement between Ghana and the U.K. That was followed by an agreement with Germany being given to me to advise on but I was temporarily taken away from my consultancy work by Government so that I could not complete my advice and did not manage to follow up on what happened to that agreement. I was asked to draft the White Paper on the report of the Committee which enquired into the income tax law for the consideration of Government, which I did. The funny thing was that after my draft, Leif Muten was invited to Accra to look at and comment on it. He stayed with us on that occasion. I knew what his task was but he did not know that I had drafted the Paper. It was after he had made his comments, which were favourable, on it that I told him that I drafted it. He was taken aback. What if he had commented adversely on the draft? Would it not have spoilt his relationship with his host? I assured him that it would not have done so. He made some remarks about how careful one had to be in life lest one offended unintentionally.

Acheampong's regime began under the name of the National Redemption Council. As I said earlier, modesty and a desire to do right characterised their actions to begin with. The limitations in a military regime are not confined only to a want of democratic credibility. Lacking in a mandate from the people, they assume power with the justification of correcting wrongs committed by their predecessor government. But in most cases, they have no well-thought-through or coherent and consistent political, economic or social policies to implement. Even where it is benevolent in outlook and has some policies to implement to the good of the people, its approach is prescriptive and does not necessarily rely on the wishes of the people. With a desire not to let go of power, they often adopt such actions which would enable them to hold on to such power. As there are always people who want to take advantage of any government, whether democratic or not, they soon derive their support not only from the military establishment but also from such sections of the civilian population which is persuaded that its fortune lies with the government in power. Regimes rarely lack persons or groups which keep singing their praises and proclaiming how good they are. We still believed in Ghana that we had great natural resources which foreigners were anxious to steal from us. We had not quite realised that whenever there is a coup, all serious foreign interest in the country is suspended for a number of years until the outside world has had sufficient time to study and be assured of our policies, if any, before risking its money. We had not quite realised that there were many parts of this world, also with natural resources which were vying with each other to attract the available foreign investment interest in the world.

I should be the last person to speak against military governments as I have personally benefited through advancement by a military government, namely, the National Liberation Council. But the NLC gave themselves a limited time after which they were to hand over power to a civilian government. What had attracted me most to its conduct of affairs was that, in my view, it was a comparatively cleaner government as I had known it to be and its declared policy was to hold a free and fair democratic election. That I take the view that some of its members permitted themselves to be taken over by Busia and his colleagues and to encourage his political ambitions, is a matter on which contrary views could be expressed. Busia never appealed to me in the same way as other people who gave me the impression that they did not really mean what they professed. But there were those, among them close friends of mine, who believed in him and thought that Ghana's salvation could be realised only through him. Acheampong's regime, however, did not have the same determinable quality which the NLC had. At first, no one knew how long it intended to stay or what sort of civilian governmental system, if at all, it wanted to see in operation in Ghana after it had departed. Its policy of capturing the commanding heights by making foreign companies sell part of their capital to Ghanaians may be described as an act to advance Ghanaian nationalism. Others preferred to simply call it nationalisation of foreign assets. But, as explained earlier, it affected only a few Ghanaians in those days. Most were not interested in shareholding as a form of investment. I did approve of this Acheampong policy because, practically all the foreign companies, asked to sell part of their capital to Ghanaians, were established and nurtured during the colonial administration. The companies had seized the plum profit areas for their exploitation. Like the European Club known as “Accra Club”, the ownership of its capital was restricted to foreigners alone and they might have been prepared to allow a few prominent Ghanaians to join their businesses after independence. But that was rare. The opportunity, given by Acheampong's policy for Ghanaians to participate in these businesses, was therefore, to me, a good idea. But that was not the main problem with the running of the economy of Ghana. The control which Government had on the public corporations through which it managed vast sections of the economy, generally inefficiently, continued. The cocoa industry, which had been our economic backbone for so long was dying of neglect. The amount paid to the cocoa farmers, for long a small fraction of the world price had become derisory; farmers active in cocoa production were growing old as their sons continued a one way drift to the cities, where jobs and bright lights supposedly abounded; the labourers from neighbouring countries who had been driven away by Busia's mass deportations had not returned. There was a serious shortage of labour in the cocoa farms. In contrast to the Ghana Government's treatment of the cocoa farmers, Ivory Coast was paying a generous proportion of the world cocoa price to its farmers. Even Togo, which did not have cocoa farms of any note, was setting generous prices for the purchase of cocoa. It was not a matter of great surprise that Ghanaian grown cocoa should somehow find its way to both these markets. By the time we returned from the U.S., the regime's reputation for modesty and humbleness was gone. It was behaving like the autocratic government, which it no doubt was, intent on holding on to power for as long as it could. It was not helped by a deteriorating world price of cocoa or the continuous haemorrhage of the country's wealth through neighbouring countries which had a harder currency. Smuggling of cocoa was rife. The alleged quantities were so large that suspicions were aroused that some in authority must either be involved or were encouraging it. Rumours of corruption were rife.

In the absence of any indication of a return to civilian rule, there were also constant rumours of planned coup d'etats to replace the Government. When there was a change in the middle of Acheampong's reign, it was a change of one military structure of Government described as the National Redemption Council which was established at the time of the overthrow of the Busia Government in 1972, by the superimposition of an even more exclusive body described as the Supreme Military Council in 197*,~[* date? ]~ with Acheampong still at the head. There were a number of changes in personnel at the top. E. N. (Fiifi) Moore, who had been made Attorney-General by virtue of the fact that he was the President of the Bar Association at the time of the coup in 1972, was said to have participated actively in the changing of personnel. When the exercise was all finished, Moore himself was replaced as Attorney-General by Justice Gustav Koranteng-Addow, a superior Court judge. The dissimulation practised on Moore was a devastating blow. If there was any doubt initially as to whether Acheampong's power had been curbed by the introduction of this new scheme, it soon dawned on the population that the Government was still under Acheampong. The new arrangement brought no alleviation of hardships in the economy or in democratic participation. The rumours of a coming displacement of Acheampong continued.

It now became clear that Acheampong wanted to remain the Head of State even if the military regime, whether in substance or in name only, was replaced. In their desperation for change, the students of the University of Ghana rioted calling for a change of government. They had prepared a document which demanded that Acheampong should surrender power to a temporary troika headed by the then Chief Justice, Azu Crabbe. Because Azu Crabbe's name appeared in this document, he was suddenly replaced as Chief Justice by Fred Apaloo. I do not know that the termination of the appointment of Azu Crabbe was because Acheampong concluded that he must have been behind the students' riot but it appeared as if he had thought so. Azu Crabbe's departure ushered in a Chief Justice with whom I felt much more compatible. But his loss of office for something for which he was not responsible, as appeared to be the case, was a personal tragedy. He retired to his retreat in the Akwapim hills.

One could dismiss the information that he had been keen to have Ohene-Djan convicted of murder because Acheampong was enraged by the lawyer's desire to replace him, as part of a product of the rumour mill. It is not so easy to assign the same explanation for Acheampong's energetic promotion of his constitution for a Union Government or the campaigns officially organised in its support. Union Government, or for short “Unigov” as it was popularly known, was the name given to the constitutional structure, which he promoted to the extent of having a draft constitution prepared and officially published, of a system of government for Ghana without political parties. A system in which all legislators would be elected on a personal basis like a collection of independent representatives. My good friend, Dr. Thomas Mensah, the brilliant academic lawyer and former member of the Legon Law Faculty, who was then in the international public service, was popularly conferred with the honour of having been brought back to Ghana to draft the constitution. Geoffrey Bing also visited Ghana about the time when it was in gestation. The purpose of his visit was ascribed to discussions on the Unigov constitution. I did not bother to discuss the question with Tommy Mensah. Even if it was correct that he had drafted the constitution, which I do not say was so, his connection with that constitution was no more than that of any draftsman of a legal document and could not be said to show him to be a necessary adherent of the system of government. There was strong opposition, both emotional and logical, from a large number of politicians and the politically aware to Unigov. The main objection to it must be that it denied the people the constitutional right to freedom of association. I must confess that I was not very interested at the time with the forms of government to express a preference for or against the system. I prayed for Acheampong to leave the scene because I thought he was leading the country to perdition. But I was not sure of what I wanted instead. I was already somewhat disillusioned with democracy, as practised in Ghana, and would have been content with an enlightened and benevolent autocracy which was free from corruption. As a result, I did not pay too much attention to the Unigov debate. As it turned out, Ghana did not have to go through that route at all.

At last, when the change in government came in 1978, it was by a palace coup. Acheampong was replaced by General Akuffo as Chairman of the SMC. James Aggrey Orleans, who was the Chief of Protocol at the Foreign Office at the time and accompanying a foreign dignitary for an early morning appointment, relates the story of how they were kept waiting in the ante-room to Acheampong's office for a long time while officers like Odartey-Wellington were going in and coming out. Eventually, Acheampong was marched out by the officers without his epaulettes. [Check the story again with Aggrey-Orleans] Thus, ended Acheampong's reign. Akuffo's second in command was Joshua Hamidu, whom I had got to know while I was DPP because he was then in Military Intelligence. The Military Government then announced the abandonment of the Union Government initiative and that it intended to surrender power to a democratically elected Civilian Government based on the political party system in the following year, after the adoption of a new Constitution. My old colleague at the Attorney-General's Office, V.C.R.A.C. (Charlie) Crabbe was appointed the Chairman of a Constitutional Assembly, composed of interest groups, such as professional people, trade unionists, farmers and market women, which was given the task of drawing up the new Constitution. Political activity was revived. It provided form of activity, diversion, entertainment and opportunity for competition for the people. As a result, the art and its practice of politics in themselves have always been a reliever of tensions.

Attorney-General Koranteng-Addow soon began to give indications of inability to hold down the job. He made pronouncements which were incompatible with his position. One of them was published on the last day of December, 1978. On reading that, I told Stella that I thought his days in office were numbered. I did not realise how prophetic that was. But I was summoned to appear at the Castle at Osu on 1 January. When I got there, I was asked to be the next Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice. My main preoccupation would be to see to the finalisation and the bringing into force of the new Constitution, as the SMC intended to hand over power under that Constitution to an elected Government on 1 July 1979. I told General Akuffo and the top members of the SMC present that although this was a high honour, it would disrupt the consultancy practice that I had been trying to develop. However, as the period for the interruption was only six months, I thought I could undertake it. I had no further ambition to continue in the office beyond that date. I was sworn-in together with Mrs. Gloria Nikoi, the wife of Amon, who had been invited to be the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. I was happy that Gloria was to be my colleague in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I had known her from school at Achimota and I admired her tremendously. She was an economist who had great experience in foreign affairs derived from long service in the Ministry which she was now to guide. She was to be my closest colleague during the relatively short but action-packed period that we served with two different military regimes.