Legal education has become a national obsession, with thousands struggling to enter law faculties and the Ghana School of Law.

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine’s ongoing reforms – abolishing the Ghana School of Law’s monopoly and decentralising legal training – promise to open the doors even wider.

But while we celebrate the rise of lawyers, we must confront a sobering truth: Ghana is not producing enough engineers, doctors, scientists, and technicians, the very professionals who build the real economy that drives litigation.

Ghana has about 11,000 lawyers, with roughly 8,000 actively practicing, according to available data. This translates to about one lawyer for every 2,000 citizens.

Yet, some engineering and science departments in our universities graduate fewer than ten students annually. This imbalance is not just academic, it is existential and speaks to the development priorities of our dear nation.

While many have proffered various theories for this anomaly, in an attempt to justify it, the truth remains that we cannot litigate our way to development.

A courtroom victory does not build a bridge. A legal argument does not irrigate a farm. A brilliant submission before a judge will not turn poisoned rivers back into sources of life. Neither will it establish a business and employ any of the hundreds of unemployed graduates idling about.

Exodus of critical professionals
While the law profession is enjoying adequate if not excess replenishment, Ghana is bleeding its most essential talent.

A recent study found that 71.8% of Ghanaian doctors intend to emigrate, with the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Canada as top destinations.

The reasons are painfully familiar: poor working conditions, low pay, slow career progression, and lack of postgraduate training. The International Council of Nurses reports that Ghana loses between 400 to 500 nurses every month to emigration. Even though our health workforce density has doubled in two decades, from 16.56 to 41.92 per 10,000 people, many professionals remain unemployed due to fiscal constraints, while others leave for better opportunities abroad.

In effect, we are spending our meagre resources to train healers who heal other nations. We are educating builders who build elsewhere.
And yet, we continue to produce more lawyers to argue over what we have failed to build.

Engineers built nations
It is a fact that nations that transformed their economies did so by prioritising engineering and technical professions:
• Singapore rose from a third world country to first-world status by investing heavily in engineering, technology, and scientific research.
• China produces millions of engineers annually and other technical professionals every year, powering its rise as a global manufacturing and tech leader.
• South Korea made engineering a prestigious profession, fundamental to its industrial success.
• Germany and Japan built global reputations on engineering excellence and vocational training.

These nations did not build their futures on legal arguments only as we seem to be doing; they built them on bridges, railways, software, and factories.

That is why Ghana needs to reevaluate its educational investments to stop starving essential sectors such as agriculture, mining, construction, energy, and manufacturing which contribute billions to economic growth, revenue generation and job creation.

Despite these sectors serving as the heart and soul of the economy, technical education, through which adequate professionals will be churned out, remains underfunded and misaligned.

An August 2025 UNICEF study found that only one out of 57 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions in Ashanti Region offers agricultural training, despite high demand.

Information, communication and technology (ICT) training is similarly scarce. The Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (CTVET) warns of a skills mismatch and infrastructure strain due to rising enrollment without adequate investment.

Lawyers need the real economy
Let me emphasize that I know the value of legal education. I assembled a formidable legal team to defend myself through nearly eight years of persecution. I am, therefore, not against more lawyers.

But I, like many others am for Ghana becoming more deliberate in nurturing the professionals who build the economy. Lawyers are indispensable but they thrive when the economy thrives. They draft contracts for factories, negotiate mergers or takeovers for businesses, and litigate disputes in mining, tech, banking and manufacturing deals, among others.

Without a vibrant real sector, the legal profession has fewer cases to handle, beyond crimes related to social vices, which are largely outcomes of a faltering economy, and political persecutions like what I suffered.

That is why Ghana must rebalance its national priorities.
We must make it just as prestigious to be a neurosurgeon, a robotics engineer, or a renewable energy expert as it is to be a lawyer. We must invest in technical education, align curricula with industry needs, and retain our critical professionals.

We must have vociferous advocates for an open, non-bias or secluded medical education system just as my good friend, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare did for the opening up of the legal profession.

Let us not become a nation of brilliant litigators arguing over broken systems.

Let us not raise generations of lawyers to defend what we failed to build. Let us not celebrate the courtroom while our clinics are empty, our roads unfinished, and our industries underdeveloped.

Let us expand the real economy so that the lawyers we train have industries to advise, contracts to draft, and deals to close. Let us build a Ghana where prestige meets productivity. Where law serves industry. Where education fuels transformation.
Let us reprioritise. Let us rebalance, and let us build, starting now.

Source: Alhaji Seidu Agongo

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“Heritage Bank would have given the entire banking industry in Ghana competition they could never match. Have you visited any of our branches before? Our success was in the planning, not just what you saw,” he stated.

In an interview on TV3’s Business Focus, the business mogul and philanthropist recounted his experience with Heritage Bank and the challenges that led to its collapse.

He lamented that the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) actions derailed his vision of establishing a Ghanaian bank capable of competing on the global stage.

“Look at Nigerian banks—they are almost everywhere. Can you name a Ghanaian bank operating outside Ghana? I wanted to change that. I assembled a strong board, including ex-BoG Governor Alex Ashiagbor, Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, and Benson Nutsukpui. Would they be part of a fraudulent bank?” he questioned.

Mr. Agongo also took issue with the justification used by the Bank of Ghana to revoke Heritage Bank’s license, particularly the claim that he was “not fit and proper” to own a bank.

He questioned why he was initially asked to merge with other banks if he was supposedly unqualified.

“If I wasn’t fit and proper, why did they ask me to merge with other banks—the same ones allegedly not fit and proper? Where is the consistency?” he asked.

He argued that the central bank had already conducted thorough due diligence before granting him a banking license, making their later decision contradictory.

“BoG has a forensic unit that checks everything before issuing a banking license. So how do I suddenly become unfit and improper within a year?” Mr. Agongo challenged.

Mr. Agongo maintains that his bank’s closure was politically motivated rather than based on sound regulatory grounds.

He questioned the fairness of shutting down a private institution employing Ghanaians simply because its owner had an ongoing court case.

“You collapse a private institution employing Ghanaians because the owner has a case in court? Does that sound fair?” he asked.

He further disclosed that at one point, he feared imprisonment due to the pressure and accusations against him.

“There came a time when even relatives and people I trusted told me I was going to jail,” he revealed.

However, following the Attorney General’s recent decision to drop charges against him, Mr. Agongo believes his ordeal exposes major flaws in Ghana’s regulatory framework and the circumstances that led to the revocation of Heritage Bank’s license.

Despite his grievances, when asked what he would say if he met Addison, Agongo responded, “I’ll thank him so much.”

He argued that the central bank acted under political influence, emphasizing that the BoG is not truly independent despite its mandate.

“Whoever appoints you holds the key to your actions. How do I appoint you, and you say you’ll be independent? You’ll do whatever I ask you to do,” he stated.

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