{"id":1008327,"date":"2022-03-02T12:08:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T12:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/03\/02\/im-speaker-because-i-have-very-good-friends-in-npp-bagbin\/"},"modified":"2022-03-02T12:08:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T12:08:34","slug":"im-speaker-because-i-have-very-good-friends-in-npp-bagbin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/03\/02\/im-speaker-because-i-have-very-good-friends-in-npp-bagbin\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m Speaker because I have very &#8216;good friends\u2019 in NPP- Bagbin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Bagbin-and-council-of-state-members-1024x700.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Speaker <\/strong>of Parliament, <strong>Alban Bagbin<\/strong> has said he won the slot to become Speaker because he has \u2018very good friends\u201d in the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) despite being in the opposition party. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Bagbin disclosed this at a meeting with members of the Council of State on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve gone through it from 1993 up to date. I\u2019ve seen some of the challenges. I identified some but when I really took over, then the weight came on me.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I see myself, even though I\u2019m a member of the NDC, throughout my practice, I haven\u2019t been a fanatic of party politics and I\u2019ve always breached across the political divide and I\u2019ve very good friends on the other side of the political divide and that is how come I won.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI couldn\u2019t have won without the support of members from the other side and, so, you\u2019d hear me saying that at the end of the day, I don\u2019t expect either party to praise me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p> The former Nadowli Kaleo MP in the meeting emphasised it is important that parliament is seen as the essence of Ghana\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDemocracy is about parliament; it\u2019s not about the executive, it\u2019s not about the judiciary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy do I say so? The practice of what we call \u2018culture of democracy should be seen and felt on the floor of parliament and that is why, sometimes, we say it\u2019s the bastion of democracy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Bagbin in the meeting also added his voice to the recent coup mongering comments in the country, stating if there\u2019s a coup, it\u2019s parliament that suffers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe judiciary will always be there, there will always be an executive arm and because of the absence of parliament, too many Ghanaians don\u2019t understand what parliament is and what the work of an MP is,\u201d he admonished.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"ujJlrQo6JtU\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I\u2019m Speaker because I have very \u2018good friends\u2019 in NPP \u2013 Bagbin\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ujJlrQo6JtU?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>On the back of commitment in discharging his duties, Mr Bagbin reiterated his stance to be impartial but not neutral, a trait he indicated he learned from a former Speaker of Parliament. <\/p>\n<p>\u2018You also heard me say that in the performance of my functions, I will be impartial but that doesn\u2019t mean I will be neutral and this is what I learned from my father, the late Rt Hon Peter Ala Adjetey.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a ruling which is in the Hansard. So, [with] any matter that comes before the house, I cannot be neutral because I have an interest in it but in performing my duty as Speaker, I have to be impartial. Those are the differences. People don\u2019t understand,\u201d Mr Bagbin explained.<\/p>\n<p>He further vowed he cannot sit as a Speaker and see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.<\/p>\n<p>To him, he will by that act be abdicating his role as a statesman and as one of the leaders of the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I have an interest in whatever comes to the floor and whether it is against the left or against the right, I will say it. That is what I\u2019m committed to. That\u2019s why I said that at the end of the day, I don\u2019t expect either party to praise me because I may hurt both,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"99bWz7mNQbA\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NDC&#039;s Misleading Petition to CommonWealth An Attempt to Undermine Ghana&#039;s Sovereignty (2-3-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/99bWz7mNQbA?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has said he won the slot to become Speaker because he has \u2018very good friends\u201d in the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) despite being in the opposition party. Mr Bagbin disclosed this at a meeting with members of the Council of State on Tuesday. \u201cI\u2019ve gone through it from 1993 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1008328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1008327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1008327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1008327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}