Member of Parliament (MP) for Builsa South, Dr Clement Apaak, says it is dishonest for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to allege that Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin was not voted for.
This, according to Dr Apaak, is because NPP MPs would never have agreed that Mr Bagbin be sworn in as Speaker if they had a choice.
“Rt. Hon. Sumana Bagbin was duly elected as the Speaker of the 8th Parliament of the Republic of Ghana. This was in spite of all the plots, schemes, and shenanigans of Mr Akufo-Addo as deployed by his henchmen after a meeting on the night of January 6th and the early hours of January 7th,” he added.
The comments by Dr Apaak follow several allegations made by the leader of the NPP caucus, Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu that the party decided to compromise for the office of the Speaker of Parliament to be conferred on the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Alban Sumana Bagbin.
Backing this claim, the Deputy Chief Whip for the NPP, Habib Iddrisu, also revealed that both Mr Bagbin and Professor Mike Oquaye polled 136 votes each in the election held in the Chamber of Parliament on Thursday, January 7, 2020.
But rubbishing the claims in a post on his Facebook page, Dr Apaak said “Kyei Mensah Bonsu should stop being arrogant.
“We voted all 275 of us. The ballot box was opened and the ballots sorted. There was one spoilt ballot after sorting in accordance with the number of candidates: Prof. Mike Oquaye number 1 and Alban Sumana Bagbin number 2. The votes for Prof. Oquaye counted were 136.
“It was after this that we in the NDC started jubilating because the outcome was obvious, that our Father and nominee, Hon. Bagbin had won. Clearly, with only one spoilt ballot, common maths showed that Bagbin obtained 138 votes. For those not good at maths, 275 minus 1+136=137. When 137 is subtracted from 275 the answer is 138,” he explained.