Group unhappy with lack of national honor on Speaker Bagbin

The agitation for Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin to be given national recognition by the state appears to be getting wilder as a youth group in the Volta Region, accuses some persons in Ghana’s lineage of presidents of deliberate sabotage.

According to the Volta Youth for Truth in Politics (VYTP), a group based in Agbozume, former President John Mahama and current President Nana Akufo-Addo have refused to decorate Bagbin out of envy.

“There is no other explanation for the deliberate refusal to honour Bagbin that would make sense except for the fact that the Rt. Hon. Speaker is envied by the immediate past government and its president and the current government and its president,” said Mr. Wisdom Dzakadzi who spoke on behalf of the group.

According to him, “May be these two gentlemen are not too happy about the tall accolades that Bagbin has earned already and feel that decorating him with national honour will make Bagbin the most outstanding of all the politicians of the Fourth Republic.”

The accusation comes in the wake of local government experts and Presiding Members of District Assemblies bemoaning the fact that the Rt. Hon. Bagbin who is the longest serving Parliamentarian in the Fourth Republic has not been decorated with any national honour even though many people with far less track record have been given national honours.

According to the VYTP’s Wisdom Dzakadzi, they have focused their accusation on former President Mahama and current president Akufo-Addo because before they became presidents, they were Bagbin’s juniors in Parliament.

“Both President Akufo-Addo and Former President Mahama served in Parliament when Bagbin was either Majority Leader or Minority Leader.

They know very well that Bagbin mentored them in their parliamentary days and they know very well that rising through the ranks as MP for Nadowli/Kaleo without ever losing his seat is a far higher track record than those that they have bestowed national awards,” said Mr. Dzakadzi in an interview.

He adds that, “they also know that Bagbin is one of the most influential pillars of the Fourth Republic.

“He is an institutional memory for Parliament having served from the very beginning of the Fourth Republic so what would make anybody neglect acknowledging him with national honour if not envy?”

Mr. Dzakadzi said former President Mahama was the first to “neglect doing the needful when he was in office, and now President Akufo-Addo is doing the same.”

He added his voice to the recent call by the local government experts and Presiding Members of District Assemblies to decorate the Speaker with the Order of the Volta for his longstanding meritorious service to Ghana through Parliament.

“We want President Akufo-Addo to prove our suspicion that he envies Bagbin wrong; by simply doing the needful,” the group said.