Bagbin’s Crude Cadre Traits

Alban Bagbin

 

Our constitution establishes clearly the principles of separation of powers.

Therefore in the case of Ghana, the framers of the constitution anticipate some conflicts among all the arms of government, especially as all these bodies are human institutions.

The constitution states clearly the functions of the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, but ordinarily, each of these arms of the government must out of necessity stay in their lanes, these bodies stray off and engage in “showdowns” with each other in their activities.

Although the parameters have been set, each of these arms have “weapons” that they try to use against each other. There is no ambiguity in as far as the structure of our governance architecture has prescribed. There is no controversy as to who is the primus inter pares among the leaders of these three arms of government.

Recent developments indicate the lack of respect for the structure, making some hold the view that best assessment of their work is to challenge the authority of the President. Unfortunately, one of our respected members of the Legislature has become “notorious” for challenging his superiors.

Just last week, the Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Alban Bagbin challenged the capacity of the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to return a bill to Parliament because of certain limitations. We do not think the President out of necessity rubber stamps the bills from Parliament without scrutiny.

If the President has no such mandates, we think the Speaker would not have referred the bill to the President to assent to it to become law. That requirement would not have been imperative as the constitution would have mandated the Speaker to assent to bills to become law. No matter how the Speaker thinks of himself and he would not miss the opportunity to remind us that he is Number Three on the structure, he cannot sign bills into law.

That was why we had expected him to be more temperate in his response to the decision of the President to return the bill on witchcraft to Parliament to reconsider certain aspects. Whatever the Speaker wanted to convey to the President last Monday, we think the language was overboard.

We do not expect the Speaker to be condescending but at least show some respect to our President. We want to know from Mr. Speaker what he meant when he said the President got his reason tragically wrong and that the President had not been properly advised and informed of the process these bills have gone through.

And again look at the way the Speaker humiliated the Majority Leader when he sought to make a statement in response as if he was dealing with a school boy akin to a headmaster and student relationship. The Speaker has the tendency to take the route of militancy or he also has the revolutionary spirit in him, after all he is NDC too.

In context, we recall what Speaker Bagbin said to Speaker Ala Adjetey in 2003 when the current Speaker was Minority Leader. He claimed Speaker Ala Adjetey had attacked his personal integrity and because he had attacked him he would go after him.

Speaker Bagbin said his people elected him and he elected Speaker Ala Adjetey, and he cannot attack him as Minority Leader and refuse him the opportunity to reply to the accusations.

Listen to Speaker Bagbin then, “unless the Speaker apologises to me I will go after him,” the Minority Leader told the parliamentary press corps just after the Minority walked out of the House in protest against the Speaker’s refusal to allow their Leader hearing.

Speaker Bagbin, we hope you have not forgotten your encounter with Speaker Ala Adjetey leading to your walkout from the House. We think the same principle you complained about then applies to the Majority Leader, Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu. And because of that you needed not shout at him to sit down. Speaker Bagbin, our elders counsel that in all our dealings with others we remember the virtue; the example is better than precepts.

Speaker Bagbin you are Catholic, for which reason we remind you to return Augustine’s philosophy about humility when he said, “If you were to ask me, however often you might repeat the question, what are the instructions of the Christian religion, I would be disposed to answer always and only, ‘Humility’.”

 

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