The Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, has refuted assertions that his criticism of the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, at a press conference on November 7, 2024, is disrespectful to the Speaker.
According to him, he was only pointing out issues he had with the Speaker, which is permissible in any democracy.
He added that the Speaker was not a monarch and must learn to accept criticism and be less sensitive to diverse opinions.
“I think Mr. Speaker failed the nation and failed our democracy and I do so with utmost respect. Some of the NDC guys are trying to suggest that expressing my view on his conduct amounts to disrespect. Let me make it clear that I will be the last person, I repeat, I, Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, will be the last person to disrespect Mr. Speaker.
“But Mr. Speaker should not think that he's a king or an emperor. He's not an emperor, he's a democrat. Therefore he shouldn't be too sensitive to divergent views. What he's doing, in all humility, is wrong,” he said while addressing the media after the Supreme Court adjourned his application challenging Speaker Bagbin's declaration of four seats in the House vacant, on November 11, 2024.
The Effutu legislator also indicated that his colleague National Democratic Congress (NDC) MPs, who are accusing him of disrespecting the Speaker, would have done worse under the same circumstances.
“So my friends in the NDC should open their eyes and ask themselves if they were the ones at the receiving end, how would they react? The NDC would have raised hell on this matter but we have been calm in all of this."
Background:
Afenyo-Markin criticised the Speaker of Parliament for his handling of the controversy surrounding the declaration of four seats in the House as vacant.
Speaking to the media at Parliament after the Speaker adjourned the meeting indefinitely for the second time in less than a month, Afenyo-Markin accused the Speaker of threatening the country’s democracy with his actions.
He accused the Speaker of overseeing chaos in the Parliament of Ghana, which he said his side would not tolerate.
The leader of the NPP caucus also criticised the Speaker for remarks he made at his press briefing on Wednesday, November 10, 2024.
“The Speaker is setting the country on fire. Yesterday we were disappointed with his reconciliatory posture during his press conference,” he said.
He accused Speaker Bagbin of betraying an agreement made prior to the sitting, for him to tell the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MPs that they are the Minority Caucus and instruct them to sit on the minority side of the House.
He claimed that the Speaker had assured certain stakeholders, including the Peace Council of Ghana, that his earlier declaration of four seats in Parliament as vacant no longer stood after the Supreme Court's order; stating that the NPP MPs chose not to appear in the House because they did not want to participate in what they perceived as lawlessness.
Watch Afenyo Markins remarks in the videos below:
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