Alban Bagbin
Mr Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, has described former President John Dramani Mahama’s administration as an Animal farm government.
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 had toiled for the party had been ignored.
Mr Bagbin, a leading contender for the opposition National Democratic Congress’ 2020 presidential ticket, stated this in a meeting with communicators of the party at his office in Parliament House.
The party communicators who met the flagbearer hopeful instigated the revelations when they questioned why they should support the candidature of Bagbin when he finally files his nomination.
Their point was that they had toiled in the recent past to get former President Mahama into office, but when he became President, they were abandoned.
Most of them said they were jobless and impoverished from neglect from their party for eight years and asked why they should commit to helping any other flagbearer hopeful for the party.
Mr Bagbin, who had already promised a paradigm shift from that of former President Mahama’s style of governance, 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 because unlike everyone else, President Mahama had not worked his way through the ranks of the party.
He said in 2004, while, he was Minority Leader, he had to make time to campaign for Mahama in his constituency where the NDC Presidential votes in the Parliamentary elections had been diminishing because he was not in touch with the grassroots.
He said he knew all party true-bloods who continued to sacrifice for the party and therefore, deserved to be rewarded appropriately.
“It is not for nothing that I have said I would make the party the fulcrum of my administration, if I am elected flagbearer and eventually win to become the President, I know our people and respect their efforts,” Mr Bagbin said.
An elated crowd of party communicators broke into songs of praise for Mr Bagbin with lyrics of the song portraying him as the only one who could build Ghana with integrity and also reward the sacrifices of Ghanaians.
The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament took the opportunity to remind the communicators that he had nothing against former President Mahama.
He noted that following the untimely death of late President Mills in office in 2012, he was one of the people who made sure the former President, who was then Vice to President, was allowed to go unopposed as Flagbearer.
He said former President Mahama’s administration neglected party faithful, causing pain to members and even the founders and leaders.
Mr Bagbin said he was a rich experience, having served as Minority and Majority Leader, through which he also served as a member of the NDC’s Functional Executive Committee, National Executive Committee and Council of Elders.
-GNA