Bagbin Plays “An Nduom”

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

When Mr. Alban S. K. Bagbin, the former National Democratic Congress’ majority leader in the Ghanaian parliament, declares that he is a man with his own mind, the listener can almost be certain that the Member of Parliament for Nadowli-West is up to something sinister.

Not long ago, for instance, the professionally trained lawyer turned calculating career politician quit his largely boondoggle post of parliamentary majority leader, in order to accept a cabinet appointment as Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing.

Many Ghanaians, not surprisingly, forget that his cabinet appointment came in the form of a not-so-subtle act of bribery from President John Evans Atta-Mills, shortly after Mr. Bagbin had vehemently argued with Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu, then-Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, over the President’s clearly st ated intention of setting up a Constitution Review Commission (CRC).

The aforesaid debate took place on the floor of the House, with Mr. Bagbin insisting that any such move would have to originate from Parliament, as clearly articulated (as well as stipulated) in Ghana’s Fourth-Republican Constitution. To be certain, I was beginning to garner a lot of respect for this man who, hitherto, I had always considered to be a veritable apparatchik, an incorrigibly servile party-machine operative.

And on the latter score, of course, I predicate my observation on the fact that not too long ago, when the National Democratic Congress was in opposition and he was the fire-spitting minority leader in Parliament, Mr. Bagbin had occasion to assert publicly that if the proverbial push came to shove, the Nadowli-West MP would not hesitate to die for the personal weal and good of Mr. Jeremiah John Rawlings.

Thus when he glibly asserts that he has decided to maintain a dubious position of neutrality in the raging contest for the 2012 flagbearership between sitting president John Evans Atta-Mills and the criminal-accomplice wife of the man to whom Mr. Bagbin has since long committed his life and his soul, one cannot but accept such assertion with a humongous lump of salt, to speak much less about a proverbial pinch of the same.

And to shore up what in his own clearly warped logic the Nadowli-West NDC-MP deems to be his sterling badge of neutrality in the Mills-Rawlings slugfest, this is what Mr. Bagbin had to say by way of underscoring his credibility: “I admire a lot of people and when people are right, I support them. In fact, if not because of Professor Mills, I would have [long] been out of politics[,] because my decision[,] when I joined [sic] politics, was to serve the nation for eight years and go back to my legal practice” (See “I’m Not for Mills or Konadu – Bagbin Declares” Peacefmonline.com 4/23/11).

Then almost as if he had committed an act of sacrilege, the Water Resources, Works and Housing minister counterpuntally added: “I’m a student of Professor Mills’; but it is [also] a fact that former President Jerry John Rawlings sacrificed his whole life in turning things around in this country. And in doing that, he must have hurt a lot of people. But leadership is about having a vision, and being firm and committed to the vision and turning people around.” Mr. Bagbin then suavely assumes the status of a “proxy scapegoat” for the Rawlingses by contritely observing thusly: “It is not everybody who would want to be turned round and sometimes you have to use some tactics to turn them around, because you don’t want them to continue to drag you back; and so people would be hurt and we will apologize for all those things, but it is important for us to leave those things behind. That is part of the history of this country.”

And just exactly who were “dragging” Mr. Rawlings back who needed to be “turned around,” Mr. Bagbin does not let on. And so one is left wondering, subject-wise, from the brutal assassination of the three Supreme Court judges and the retired Ghana Army major, to the “Kume Preko” carnage, without arriving at any definitive answer. And then, suddenly, one is woken out of one’s reverie into rude confrontation with the Indemnity Clause that continues to hobble the 1992 Fourth-Republican Constitution. And then one comes into deeper realization of the fact that for Mr. Bagbin, it is no “rock-and-a-hard-place” conundrum at all, but a stark question of expediency.

And on the latter score, of course, the Rawlingses become the enduring metaphor of constitutional indemnity, whereas the good, old Legon tax wonk becomes just a presidential also-run, a stepping stone into that “Rawlingsian” peace which surpasses the proverbial and Biblical understanding into immortality.

The author of the news article titled “I’m Not for Mills or Konadu – Bagbin Declares” (See also “I’m Not Being Wooed for Konadu – Bagbin” Ghanaweb.com 4/23/11), which was originally sourced to Citifmonline.com, appreciates this much. To this effect, s/he notes: “Although he has not publicly declared his stance, Mr. Bagbin is alleged to be secretly supporting Mrs. Rawlings[,] although he is serving in the Mills administration.”

Needless to say, the preceding strikingly recalls Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, the sometime Convention People’s Party crossover to the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party, insisting on electoral neutrality in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential runoff between Tarkwa-Atta and Nana Akufo-Addo, even when it was all-too-obvious that for Paa Kwesi, as also it was for then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills, it was all a simple matter of keeping the glorious prize of the presidency guardedly at home and among kinsmen.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra=based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author, most recently, of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###