My 2020 ambition 'as clear as daylight' – Alban Bagbin

The second deputy Speaker of Parliament and MP for Nadowli-Kaleo, Alban Bagbin, has stressed his presidential ambition is “as clear as daylight.”

“It is very clear to everybody who is watching the political arena that Honourable Bagbin has presidential ambition,” said the veteran legislator in a recent media interview.

He continued, “Together with the NDC we will take the decision as to who will lead us in 2020. But I stand tall among those who have come out so far. None of those who have come out so far do admire my leadership because I have led all of them in politics.

“All of them—those-who—have come out now and the current president my good friend Nana Akufo-Addo is aware that in 1997—2000 that the committee he actually showed his mettle was the committee of the constitutional, legal and parliamentary affairs and I was the chair and he was my ranking.

“If honourable John Dramani Mahama passed through my hands and he was vice and was president how can he or any other person say the person who…trained him is not qualified to president?”

Mr. Bagbin who had always maintained that he was not surprised by the humiliating defeat suffered by his party the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the just ended 2016 elections said he believed the party had learnt useful lessons from the annihilation.

President Akufo-Addo garnered 5, 716, 609 votes, representing 53.84 percent to snatch the presidency from former president John Mahama who secured 4,713,277 votes, representing 44.40 percent. The NDC also lost more than 40 parliamentary seats to the NPP, which gave the latter majority in Parliament. Akufo-Addo won the election after a third term bid.

“I think it is a useful lesson that we have learnt as a party and many of the elders and senior members of the party come to say that if they had listened to my early signal about the way things were going we might not have been in opposition.

“So, I am happy that they saw belatedly that what I did was for the benefit of all not just me and so I feel vindicated. It is not just me but many that have felt so and I have said it publicly at party meetings and even on radio. Many have come out to say that if they had listened to honourable Bagbin things would not have gone the way they went in the 2016 elections,” he told Citi FM.