Alban Bagbin
The Supreme Court has spoken. It has delivered a majority decision of 5:2 in the case filed by the Majority Leader, Afenyo-Markin, challenging the decision of Speaker Alban Bagbin to declare the seats of four Members of Parliament (MPs) vacant because they have shifted from their affiliations that ushered them into Parliament.
A few weeks ago, the Minority Leader raised the concern in Parliament that three MPs affiliated to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and one to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are contesting the December 7 elections on a different ticket.
It is appropriate to put on record that the NDC Minority had always looked for the opportunity to become the Majority side. They have thus exploited any means to achieve that objective in order to destabilise the governance process. Fortunately for the NDC Minority, it found a willing soul in Speaker Bagbin to make the last days in office of President Akufo-Addo, a very miserable one.
More than a decade ago, a leading member of the NDC, in fact at the time the National Chairman, Dr. Kwabena Adjei, had proclaimed very loudly that there are many ways to kill a cat. That statement is incontrovertible, especially among cat “eaters.”
Having failed to assume the Majority position in the past, the NDC MPs saw a window of opportunity when the four MPs filed to contest the December 7 polls in different colours. Indeed, Haruna Iddrisu, a former Minority Leader and MP for Tamale South dropped that hint at a rally in Tamale but many observers took it as a joke.
However, the moment Parliament returned from recess, the agenda the NDC and its leaders have rehearsed for almost four years was tabled by Ato Forson.
In spite of the caution from the Majority Leader, Afenyo-Markin to Speaker Bagbin to tread cautiously because the matter is a constitutional one, the Speaker never hesitated but allowed to gavel to authoritatively endorse the statement by the NDC Minority, thus changing the permutation in Parliament.
Since then, the NDC Minority never lost the opportunity to occupy the Majority bench even after the Supreme Court had ordered Speaker Bagbin to maintain the status quo until the final determination of the case.
Speaker Bagbin, the NDC Minority, some NDC lawyers and commentators took some very weird and strange positions against the Supreme Court as if they want the country to descend into the jungle where might reigns instead of the rule of law.
We have been asking ourselves, whether the NDC and indeed Speaker Bagbin, a lawyer, believes in the rule of law or rule of man?
The way Speaker Bagbin has conducted himself, maybe misconducted himself, he has sown a very bad seed that will continue to haunt our democracy for years to come.
We are not lawyers, but in the history of our Fourth Republic, no President, much less a Speaker has disrespected a verdict of the Supreme Court. The dictator of our generation, Jerry Rawlings never disrespected the decision of the Supreme Court to outlaw two epoch celebrations, June 4 and the 31st December revolutions, very dear to his heart.
We are always amazed when latter day saints of Jerry Rawlings such as John Mahama and Speaker Bagbin want to be more “Catholic than the Pope.”
Ghanaians should not be surprised about the “takashi” behaviour of Speaker Bagbin because till date, John Mahama, after the Supreme Court shot down his election petition in 2021, has not congratulated President Akufo-Addo on his re-election in 2020.
The NDC has serious hatred for our courts, especially the Supreme Court judges, with their leaders referring to it contemptuously as the “unanimous SC.”
We insist that sane voices must call Speaker Bagbin and his NDC leaders to order, who always want to have their way in a democracy.
Ironically, the man Ato Forson who brought the flies home because he came to the House with sugar cane, has refused the order from the Supreme Court.
He unashamedly led the NDC Minority to disrespect the Supreme Court decision. When the Court of Appeal ruled that Ato Forson and Richard Jakpa had no case to answer in the ambulance case, the NDC was all over the place celebrating the verdict.