It’s not my duty to teach MPs how they should vote – John Boadu 'hits' back at Carlos Ahenkorah

In his justification for his decision to snatch ballot papers, Carlos Ahenkorah, the Member of Parliament for Tema West accused the New Patriotic Party of not showing leadership in the election of the Speaker of the eighth parliament.

Carlos Ahenkorah said on Okay FM that while the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Asiedu Nketia used sign language to dictate to his MPs how they should conduct themselves on the night, the NPP General Secretary was nowhere to be found.

He said that the reason he snatched the ballots and allegedly chewed some was to force a re-run of the polls but his leaders failed him by agreeing to the NDC’s demand for Alban Bagbin to be declared the winner.

John Boadu who was present in Parliament on the night has responded to these claims by Carlos Ahenkorah.

According to Boadu, he discharged his duties as expected and was in constant communication with the leadership of the NPP MPs to ensure that the party’s objectives in the polls were achieved.

“Masa he should stop saying that. I went inside the chamber but the NDC MPs protested. We dealt with the leadership of NPPs MPs. If I sat at the top to do sign language, what would happen. I was at the lobby, he can verify from Afenyo-Markin and the leadership and he will know what we did. Even when they finished counting the votes and the incident happened, I had to go to the lobby. I was there throughout, from 10 am to 10pm”.

John Boadu said that he cannot be blamed for the decision by some NPP MPs to vote against the party’ choice.

He told Ahenkorah on Okay FM that as General Secretary, he had no role to play in deciding who the party’s MPs were going to vote for.

“As an MP, if not for issues, is it the General Secretary’s duty to show you where you should vote. You are 137 plus an independent candidate making 138, so if everyone voted for our candidate, would there be an issue. Do you need a General Secretary do sign language before you vote? What are we saying? What did he want me to do. Tell him to pick ballot papers? We should stop saying that”, he said.