Muntaka spent more than 2 weeks convincing NDC MPs to accept Bagbin’s nomination

-Muntaka Mubarak has said he spent over two weeks to convince NDC MPs to back Alban Bagbin’s nomination

-That, according to him, was necessary to ensure everyone was whipped inline

-Alban Bagbin was elected the Speaker of Parliament on Thursday, January 7, 2021

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Alban Bagbin took the oath of office as the Speaker of Ghana’s eighth Parliament on Thursday, January 7, 2021.

He was elected as the seventh speaker in the history of the fourth republic after a chaotic voting exercise in the chamber of parliament.

The former Nadowli-Kaleo lawmaker on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) polled 138 votes against the governing New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) candidate, Professor Mike Oquaye, who managed 136 of the votes.

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Oquaye served as the Speaker in the seventh Parliament.

Days after Chief Justice, Anin Yeboah administered the oath of allegiance and the speaker’s oath to Bagbin, it has now emerged it took the NDC’s leadership in Parliament about two weeks to secure the veteran legislator, the speakership position.

Speaking to Joy News on Sunday, January 10, 2021, the MP for Asawase, Muntaka Mubarak, said a lot of convincing was done to ensure Bagbin’s acceptance by every NDC MP.

According to Mubarak, he personally spoke to all the 137 NDC MPs individually for two weeks to have them back Bagbin’s nomination.

“We were trying to let them understand that this was in our national interest to get a Speaker on the other side so that we can put a check on the executive,” he stated.

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In other news, the NDC said it will not acknowledge Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as Ghana’s president.

Addressing a news conference in Accra on Friday, January 8, 2021, the general secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, said: “Let me state without any equivocation that the NDC shall not recognize Akufo-Addo as the President of Ghana until all issues surrounding his flawed elections are satisfactorily resolved.”

The flagbearer of the NDC in the 2020 polls, John Dramani Mahama, rejected the outcome of the elections as declared by the chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa.

He filed a petition at the Supreme Court to in his words remove doubts in the minds of Ghanaians over the credibility of the electoral process.

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Source: YEN.com.gh