Insider details to the NDC military-style operation that enthroned Bagbin as Speaker of Parliament
Alban Bagbin is, today, serving a historic second tenure as the only person to be elected twice to serve as Speaker of Parliament in Ghana. Among many other reasons too, he remains the first opposition member to be elected to head the legislature in a government that is led by a political party that is not where he came from.
But that may just be a tip of the iceberg-story of the man who is in the office of the Number 3 person in Ghana, including how, until he was nominated for the position of Speaker of Parliament, he was the longest-serving Member of Parliament in Ghana’s history. Surely, the man has had many good things going for him.
Yet, that is not all of the story. As captured in chapter 22 of award-winning investigative and anti-corruption journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni’s book, The President Ghana Never Got, some powerful hands worked things well enough for Bagbin to be put forward for the Speaker role, although it was not such an easy choice for them to make.
In fact, from the contents of the book in that chapter, things may have gone the other way on the decision on whether to have him be the candidate of the National Democratic Congress in that January 2021 election for the Speaker of Parliament of the 8th Parliament of Ghana.
And this is how Manasseh captured it in his book:
“When the Minority Chief Whip of the 7th Parliament of Ghana, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, called some leading members of the NDC to a meeting in the first week of January 2021, the agenda was not widely publicized. For a strategic reason, he kept much of the details to himself. However, many attendees assumed the meeting was intended to discuss the minority leadership of the ensuing 8th Parliament of the Fourth Republic. That meeting was held at the Cantonments office of former President John Dramani Mahama, the NDC’s flagbearer who had lost the 2020 Election three weeks earlier.
“Apart from John Mahama, the NDC’s Chairman, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, and General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, attended the meeting. A former NDC parliamentarian, Kofi Attor, and two outgoing MPs: Joseph Yieleh Chireh and Alban Sumana Bagbin, also participated. Together with the NDC leadership in the 7th Parliament, the group met for what would be the beginning of a historic moment in Ghana’s politics.”
The author went on to explain how the meeting was to discuss fielding one of the two outgoing MPs for the Speaker of Parliament position, and how this was not easily received by those in that room.
According to his accounts, Muntaka, who was the leader of the NDC MPs in Parliament, convinced that they were in poll position to challenge the New Patriotic Party in Parliament, especially when they (the NDC) were not going to occupy the seats to the right of the Speaker (the Majority side), suggested that the party challenges their opposite side to the head of the legislature position.
“The NDC had nearly won a majority in Parliament in the election. As his Minority side was returning to the House with an equal number of MPs as the governing NPP, Muntaka though the NDC could warn the NPP administration that numbers mattered. Even if the NDC could not occupy the majority side of the House, the party could make an audacious attempt at getting their own to occupy the most important office in Ghana’s legislature.
“… Muntaka was, however, unfazed… When the meeting ended, those who favoured the NDC contesting the position of the Speaker prevailed. The lot fell on Alban Sumana Bagbin… Muntaka would not say whose idea it was to choose Bagbin, but he said there no significant opposition to his candidature at the meeting, at which Bagbin himself was present. After that meeting, the NDC had only four to five days to strategise and get Bagbin elected. The responsibility for executing the almost impossible task was on the shoulders of Chief Whip Muntaka, who said the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, gave him all the support he needed,” he added.
He continued to write, “The NPP MP for Bekwai – who was to be presented by his party for the position of 1st Deputy Speaker – Joseph Osei Owusu, later said in an interview for this book that it appeared the NDC had good intelligence from the NPP side of the House to have its strategy.”
And as you may well know, Alban Bagbin went on to win that crucial election, with only a vote separating him and his contender, Prof Aaron Mike Oquaye, who, at the time, was the sitting Speaker of Parliament.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
