My criticism of Mahama’s leadership misunderstood - Bagbin

The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has revealed that his criticisms of the style of leadership of former President John Dramani Mahama were not in bad faith but just in a quest to drum home what was amiss in the party.

Mr. Bagbin, who is a leading member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), said though some elements within the party disagreed with the manner in which it was done, he meant no harm. He explained that he was merely issuing early warning signals of a looming danger that could befall the party if nothing was done.

The Nadowli-Kaleo lawmaker who is one of the longest serving Members of Parliament (MPs) described the NDC’s defeat as shocking, indicating that he only anticipated that some of his colleagues were not going to return to Parliament but not that of the presidency.

“For the president losing yes it was shocking. What we saw and the experience in the 2016 election, there was no way a prophet could have convinced anybody President John Dramani Mahama was going to lose the elections. You realised that my speeches at that time were focused on the Members of Parliament because I realised we were going to lose our numbers but not to this extent. To me it was a shock,” he disclosed.

“What I did was to give early warning signs, ring the alarm bells that something was going wrong. In spite of our intellectual wealth, we still needed cool heads, knowledge and experience that was lacking in the leadership of the party but some people understood me wrongly. A few things were corrected on my outcry but that was not enough,” he added.

According to Mr Gbagbin, his earlier concerns were meant to avert what befell the party at the polls saying, “That is why I came out early enough but some people misunderstood me. The blame game is expected, but we are trying to reorganise and I can assure you we will bounce back in 2020.”