The clamour for Mr Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin to lead the National Democratic Congress (NDC) into the 2020 election keeps getting louder and louder, as some gurus of the party in the Ashanti Region join in the call.
Alhaji Ibrahim Ali, alias Dan Baba, a leading member of the party in the Asawase Constituency and Mustapha Mohammed Tahiru Ayariga, Vice Chairman of the NDC in Asawase, on Friday, joined the school of thought that Bagbin was the best choice for 2020.
“As the 2020 campaign will be dominated by corruption, NDC will do itself a lot of good if it presents a candidate not dogged by corruption.”
The leaders who were speaking to the GNA recently at the sidelines of a party campaign programme said it was the turn of the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament to lead the party to victory.
Alhaji Ali said beyond corruption, he also dismissed the prominence argument saying that Mr Bagbin’s track record at the Ministry of Health was more than a good starting point for the NDC to use to project him as Flagbearer.
“For instance, it is a well-known fact that many of the Health infrastructure during President Mahama’s time are the brainchildren of Mr Bagbin. He initiated the upgrade of the Ridge Hospital into a fully-fledged regional hospital. It was under his tenure as Minister of Health that all the major hospitals, KorleBu, Komfo Anokye and Tamale Teaching Hospitals were equipped with ultra-modern equipment including; digital X rays, MRI, CT Scan, Ultra sound machines among other things, it was under his tenure that many nursing training schools in the country were established,” Dan Baba said.
He said all Mr Bagbin’s signatures in the Health sector resonated with those who knew and that if he was voted as Flagbearer for 2020, the NDC would blow the minds of Ghanaians with most of the Mills/Mahama government’s achievements in Health.
Apart from this, he said Mr Bagbin’s fierce reputation as an incorruptible MP was well known. “When former Deputy Finance Minister, Moses Asaga, declared him as the best Parliamentarian ever, it was because of Bagbin’s incorruptibility,” Dan Baba said.
“When you campaign as a politician and become President and then turn round to say that the reward of those who campaigned for you should be withheld because if you give them that reward you are playing politics, then you are not being fair. Like Mr Bagbin said, you forget that it is politics that took you there in the first place,” Mustapha Mohammed Ayariga, Vice Chairman of Asawase NDC said.
According to him, it was that incorruptibility that would convince most of the party’s executives to trust in his campaign message which promised to make party executives central to all policies he would formulate as party leaders and President.
Mr Bagbin recently promised to depart from the former leadership style in which the party’s executives and its rank and file were ignored and promised to make the party executives key part of his administration if he wins and becomes President.
Faith in this promise is what informed Mustapha Mohammed Tahiru Ayariga, the NDC’s Asawase Constituency Vice Chairman, to throw his support behind Bagbin.
“Recently, when Kumbungu MP, Ras Mubarak, married in Kumasi Nima and Mr Bagbin graced it, a mini rally developed suddenly forcing him to address it. It was at this mini rally that me and many executives were convinced that he deserves our push. His policy to reward the contribution of party executives is very welcome,” he said.
According to Mr Ayariga, it was this conviction that compelled many executives to wear Bagbin’s T shirts during former President Mahama’s recent Unity Walk in Kumasi.