Speaker Bagbin, Haruna Iddrisu too smart for NPP dogfight - NDC activists

A National Democratic Congress (NDC) activists in the Northern Region have dismissed claims that former Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, along with former Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak and other former leaders in the Minority front are at loggerheads with Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin.

Reacting to claims that the former Minority leaders are blaming the Speaker for instigating their removal from office, the Northerners said the claim is a bad joke that was concocted by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in attempt to bang the heads of the Speaker and the former leaders together.

“But this bad joke by the NPP has already failed because as we speak, the Speaker and Hon. Haruna Iddrissu remain very good friends and Akatamansonian comrades,” the activists said in a statement.

They added that, “the Speaker also remains very cordial with former Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak and the other members of the former Minority leadership in Parliament.”

Mohammed Alhassan had signed the statement on behalf of a group of activists of the NDC in the Northern Region who have been responding to tribal, and ethnocentrically tinged subtle campaign by the NPP aimed at instigating bad blood between the Speaker and Mr. Haruna Iddrisu in particular.

The NPP’s poisonous campaign had started in the form of fake news articles by tabloids affiliated to the party which claimed that the recent reshuffle of the Minority’s leadership in Parliament was instigated by the Speaker.

According to the articles, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin had caused Haruna Iddrisu and Muntaka Mubarak respectively, to be removed as Minority Leader and Minority Chief Whip because they were uncooperative with the Speaker.

Already, some women’s group of the NDC in the Eastern region have pooh-poohed the reports as lacking foundation in commonsense because the reshuffle was neither announced nor implemented by the Speaker, but by the party’s national leadership.

“Anybody who is claiming that the Speaker caused the removal of Haruna Iddrisu as Minority Leader is obviously floundering in rascality because the evidence shows that the Speaker remains beholden to the Minority Leader and the Minority Chief Whip.Was it not the Minority, led by Haruna Iddrisu which fought for Bagbin to become Speaker, even when the NPP’s Carlos Ahenkorah stole ballot papers and chewed them like a goat in attempt to stop Bagbin’s election? We all remember it was Hon. Muntaka who actually slapped Carlos Ahenkorah over the attempt. What would then make the Speaker want to remove them?” Mohammed Alhassan asked.

Meanwhile, another women’s group in the Northern region has reiterated the position of the NDC women’s group in Osino, Eastern Region, that the claim that Bagbin instigated the reshuffle lacks foundation in commonsense.In a statement signed by Hajia Azubia Maiga, the claim was pooh-poohed as, “desperado moves by a failed government of the NPP.”

The statement said the stories are “an appalling campaign of yellow journalism by NPP tabloids whose government has become a laughing stock because of its monumental failure and slapstick quality of its governance.”

It said there is no blood between the Rt. Hon. Bagbin and Hon. Haruna Iddrisu and that, “this reshuffle by the party’s leadership is acceptable to all of us.”

Meanwhile, the statement urged the NDC’s leadership not to lose focus but ignore the NPP and March on to victory in 2024 with Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, an economist who cannot be manipulated by the NPP to annoy Ghanaians with a dead goat comment.