Murtala's comment to Jean Mensa that Speaker asked him to withdraw

Drama unfolded on the floor of parliament during the meeting of the committee of the whole, which was set up by the Speaker of Parliament, to look into issues surrounding a new Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) for voters’ registration for the 2024 elections.

The head of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC), Jean Mensa; the Chief Executive Officer of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof Ken Attafuah and the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, appeared before the committee to explain the insistence of the commission on making the Ghana Card the only document needed for the registration of new voters.

As the EC boss was making her point on the need to make the Ghana Card, the only document needed for the registration, the Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, could be heard describing her remarks as shameful.

This infuriated members of the Majority Caucus, who were up in arms, demanding that the MP withdraws his comments. This caused some commotion in the House for a minute.

The Minister for Defence and MP for Bimbilla, Dominic Nitiwul, who was being chastised by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, for being out of order could be heard saying: “Mr Speaker, I’m protesting. You cannot invite somebody into your house and insult the person. Mr Speaker why? He is misbehaving too much.”

Bagbin then directed his anger at Murtala and told him that his comments were unparliamentary.

“Honourable Murtala Muhammed, it has long been ruled in this House that the use of the word shame is unparliamentary… the guests we have are here to answer to an invitation by this House. The best we can do is to listen to them.

“Again, Honourable Murtala Muhammed, I call on you to withdraw the shame, shame,” Bagbin said.

Murtala Muhammed, before withdrawing his comment, argued that his comments were not made through the microphone and thus cannot be recorded as official.

But Bagbin insisted that during meetings of the committees, every comment made is recorded even if it is not made through a microphone.

The action of the Speaker drew him some applause from members of the Majority Caucus.

Watch the video of the incident below:



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