Ghanaian courts will not tolerate lawyer wearing traditional clothes – Kwaku Azar eulogises Kobina Sekyi

The interesting story of a lawyer and proto-nationalist Kobina Sekyi was during the Easter holidays rehashed with several Ghanaians praising him for his role in the early independent struggle.

Kobina Sekyi, as per history was a man of many attributes but one thing that stood out about him was his aversion of European or western clothes.

As a lawyer, it is said that never did Kobina Sekyi wore European clothes to court as he was always draped in a local outfit.

But this commendable act of nationalism that existed in colonial Ghana will not be permitted in independent Ghana, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, a US-based Ghanaian Professor has said.

Kwaku Asare wrote on his Facebook timeline that in the current dispensation, the Ghanaian lawyer will ironically not be allowed to enter the court with an outfit that showcases his identity.

This he says, is because the current court system is obsessed with lawyers turning up in a particular outfit that westernized.

“I learnt that Kobena Sekyi was the first lawyer in the British colony (Gold Coast) to appear in court in a traditional African cloth.

“I applaud him and write only to observe that he did so when we were still not independent.

“Now that we are independent, I doubt that our independent courts will tolerate a Ghanaian lawyer wearing traditional clothes in an independent Ghanafuo court.

“When it comes to some of these things, it appears our independence gave us the freedom to preserve our colonial inheritance,” Prof Asare's post read.