Former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has taken a swipe at Speaker Alban Bagbin in his latest epistle titled; Games in Parliament – The Speaker and the Minority’s Motion of Censure.
In the release from the former Attorney General, he reacted to the Speaker’s warning to the Parliamentarians that his knowledge, skills and experience, should not be underrated.
According to Martin Amidu, such statements from Alban Bagbin, paint a picture as though he is a village chief and Ghanaians are his subjects.
“Mr Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, needs to be told to stop talking down on Ghanaians as though he is a village chief and we, his subjects. No humble, learned, erudite, and experienced person, will ever seek to silence his critics in a constitutional democracy by telling them that: “In all humility, please note that there is deep thought in whatever I do. Don’t underrate my knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise in Parliamentary practice and procedure.”
“It is for the public or one’s professional peer group, to determine one’s level of knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise and not for one to subjectively assert them and trumpet his competences to the world,” Martin Amidu said in his statement.
In his view, regardless of the experience of Mr Bagbin, he cannot measure up to the eminent, respected and self-effacing Justice D. F. Annan, the first Speaker of the Fourth Republic for the 1st and 2nd Parliaments, even though he is not known to have ever been elected to any Parliament in Ghana.
The country’s first Special Prosecutor, further notes that the difference between previous Speakers and Mr Bagbin is that, his predecessors were umpires, while he has consistently exhibited the qualities of a transactional Member of Parliament, forgetting that he was elevated to the Speakership of Parliament of the 8th Parliament after his retirement as a Member of Parliament.
“The conduct of Mr Bagbin in the processes leading up to the passage of the 2022 Budget Statement and subsequent Appropriation Act, 2022 and the current motion of censure filed by the Minority Caucus of Parliament against the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, vindicate the assertion that Mr Bagbin, behaves more as a transactional Member of Parliament than the Speaker of Parliament as an umpire,” Martin Amidu argued in his release.
