Alban Bagbin
Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, says former President John Dramani Mahama ran an Animal Farm administration during his tenure.
He said “in his Animal Farm administration, monkeys were working while baboons chopped.”
“That is why you had unknown people appearing from nowhere and getting top appointments while people like you and other executives who toiled for the party were ignored.”
Mr Bagbin, who is contesting for the flagbearership position of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), said this during a meeting with communicators of the party at his office at the Job 600 Office Complex at Parliament House.
The party communicators, who met the flagbearer hopeful, posed questions as to why they should support the candidature of Bagbin when he finally files his nomination.
They argued that they toiled in recent past to get former President Mahama into office, but when he (Mahama) abandoned them when he assumed office.
Most of them said they had been impoverished due to their neglect by their own party for eight years.
Mr Bagbin, who has promised to ensure a paradigm shift, explained that former President Mahama appointed outsiders into his government because he was not familiar with true party people.
According to him, the former President’s unfamiliarity with true party faithful was due to the fact that President Mahama had not really worked his way through the ranks of the party.
He said in 2004, while serving as Minority Leader, he had to make time to campaign for Mahama in his constituency where the NDC’s votes in the general elections were declining because he was not in touch with the members at the grassroots level.
“I know all party true-bloods who continue to sacrifice for the party and therefore deserve to be rewarded appropriately.
“It is not for nothing that I have said I will make the party the fulcrum of my administration, if I elected flagbearer and eventually win to become the President, I know our people and respect their efforts,” Mr Bagbin said.
The elated party communicators, who momentarily jolted out of their despondency, sang songs to praise Mr Bagbin.
The lyrics of the song portrayed him as the only person who could build Ghana with integrity and also reward the sacrifices of deserving Ghanaians.
The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament told the communicators that he has nothing against former President Mahama.
He said owing to the untimely death of late President Mills in office in 2012, he (Bagbin) was one of the people who lobbied to ensure that the former President, who was then Vice to President Mills, was allowed to go unopposed as presidential candidate.
He also pointed out that former President Mahama’s sudden elevation to the Vice Presidency had resulted from efforts from people within the party, including himself, stressing that the time has come for a paradigm shift in the party.
He said previous Mahama administration neglected party faithful, leading to apathy among members and even founders and leaders.
Mr Bagbin said he has rich experience, having served as leader of the Minority and Majority in Parliament over the years.
He said he was a member of the NDC’s Functional Executive Committee, National Executive Committee and Council of Elders.
GNA