Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwami Dafeamekpor, has shut down an attempt by former New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential aspirant, Kojo Nsafoa Poku, to claim credit for the legal education reforms for the opposition party.
Mr. Kojo Nsafo had claimed that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) copied legal education reform proposals from the NPP manifesto.
The sharp exchange occurred during an appearance on TV3 Ghana’s The Key Points, where panellists debated the Legal Education Reform law.
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President John Dramani Mahama signed the Legal Education Reform Bill (2025) into law on May 11, 2026, following its passage by Parliament in March. The reform ends the Ghana School of Law’s 66-year monopoly on legal education, paving the way for accredited institutions to offer qualifying law programs.
During the discussion, Kojo Nsafoa Poku argued that the NPP had already outlined similar reforms in its 2024 manifesto.
According to him, the NPP proposed a comprehensive review of professional legal education, including converting the Ghana School of Law into a pure examination body under a Council for Professional Legal Education.
He further noted that the manifesto also proposed specialised legal and paralegal training to serve industry and other stakeholders.
“They copied the first part of our manifesto,” Mr Poku said, insisting that the NDC pinched the policy idea but omitted some of the broader proposals.
Hon. Dafeamekpor, however, swiftly rejected the assertion, arguing that the push for legal education reform predated the 2024 manifesto and had been formally recommended in Parliament as far back as 2019.
He referred to a report by Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs on a petition submitted by the National Association of Law Students seeking reforms to Ghana’s legal education system.
The report, signed by former Committee chairman Ben Abdallah Banda, urged the government to undertake sweeping reforms in legal education.
“Five years before 2024, we had already given you the roadmap,” Dafeamekpor stated. “You were in government, but you were not interested in implementing these reforms.”
The South Dayi MP maintained that the current law is the result of years of advocacy and parliamentary recommendations rather than a copied manifesto promise.
He added that practice-oriented legal training and paralegal studies are already embedded in the reform proposals, including provisions under Section 49 of the draft legislation.
The Legal Education Reform Law expands access to professional legal training, modernises the curriculum, and addresses longstanding concerns about limited admissions to the Ghana School of Law.