Spio-Garbrah swallows pride to join Mahama’s “Team B”

At his vetting for the position of Trade and Industry Minister, Mr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah embarrassed his boss, His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama.

He let a slip that his Curriculum Vitae (CV) had been with the President at the Flagstaff House over a year now.

These were some of the unguided statements he made when he sat over six hours before the Appointments Committee of Parliament last Wednesday.

Regarding his description of President Mills’s appointees as “Team B” including the now-President, Ekow Spio-Garbrah did not only embarrass himself, but his teeming supporters who followed him there.

Having swallowed his pride as a “Team A” player, the nominee Trade and Industry Minister did not only vainly try to imply that he used discussions on radio as the basis for his description of appointees of President John Atta Mills as “Team B”, but also exhibited that he needs the job badly.

During the six-hour cross-examination, Mr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah in his quest to get the approval from the Appointments Committee of Parliament, did everything humanly possible to convince members on the committee that he did not describe the late President Mills’ appointees including His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama as “Team B”.

Kept out of government since 2009, Mr. Garbrah described President Mahama then a Vice President, and colleagues appointed by President Mills as “Team B” players.

He indicated at the time that; “I wrote in the relevant section that... large segments of the public have been asking on radio stations why the government may have chosen to field SOME players from its Team ‘B’ when many Team ‘A’ players are available and ready to play.

So, first of all, I was quoting a comment I heard made by some people on radio discussion programmes”; Spio-Garbrah unproductively tried to defend himself at the time when his unpalatable comment received a serious backlash.

Having swallowed his pride to serve among the supposedly “Team B” players, will he (Spio-Garbrah) publicly apologise to President Mahama, who was then the deputy “Team ‘B’” captain under the late President Mills’ administration, ministers appointed by the late president to work with him for referring to them as “Team ‘B’” players; and to the late J.E.A. Mills himself?