If you’re a true-blue NPP member and you encounter a fellow NPP member fighting an NDC member, support your fellow NPP member to beat the NDC member well, well …” – Hon. Frank Annoh-Dompreh, MP for Nsawam – Adoagyiri, Minority Chiefs Whip,
– 6th February, 2025
Thursday, 24th July, 2025. The whole nation was sitting woozy-shaped. Expectations, agitations, guesses, anticipations were rife. Parliament was heated… In the swearing of Ewurabene Aubynn on Tuesday, 22nd July, 2025, there was a walkout by the Minority side in Parliament. Hon. Frank Annoh-Dompreh, the Minority Chief Whip who had been denied the chance to make a statement announced: “Mr. Speaker, we cannot be part of this swearing-in.” He immediately led the Minority out of the Chamber.
The Speaker, Hon. Bagbin deprecating the political violence noted: “Let’s remove totally the issue of violence from our lives, particularly our political lives, not only the elections, but also in the House when making submissions… Most of the words you use are not only intemperate, but even how they are uttered shows violence. This House is now full of shouting, that is not how we started the Fourth Republican Parliament…”
Then, on 24th July, 2025, the Minority Chief Whip raised the issue of violence. The Speaker, Hon. Bagbin cut him and addressed the Parliament “The Minority Chief Whip is raising a very serious matter. I think we should take a day to debate on it for everyone to be involved because it takes away the shine of our democracy in this country.
So, it is not something we can gloss over, but I want to plead with him because I didn’t know this was what he was going to say, and my intention is for us to devote a day and have enough time to take this matter through. Particularly, you the players must be more worried than anybody else. I want to urge the Minority Chief Whip to let us talk today because we don’t have time to do that?
The Minority Chief Whip would not let the cup pass by: appalled by the violence at the Ablekuma North election re-run at which Ewurabena Aubynn edged out Akua Afriyie with 34,000 votes and 33,881 votes respectively politely stated: “I will not on any day defy your authority. We have outlined a number of activities to back home our demand and to the extent that these violences visited are not atoned.
To that extent, we are exiting Parliament and cannot be part of this (Mid-Year budget) process,” What! Oh! Ah!” Oh, judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason”! MPs showing the “macho” in them. Was the Mid-Year Budget going to discuss NDC matters or was it a “national” affair?
What was NPP’s strategy? Are people not right for anyone to argue that “lawlessness reigns in NPP now”? Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg in honour of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in order “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth “would apply equally for Ghana and Ghanaians. We must govern ourselves and those running our affairs must bear in mind that democracy must arise from the consent of the governed. Why should we justify the walk-out by reference to what NDC did in the past?
NDC used walk-outs as key tools in registering their opposition; for example, the walk-out over Otiko Afisa Djaba’s appointment as Minister of Gender Children and Social Protection; the March 2017 walk-out over Ken Ofori Atta’s budget with cuts to the District Assembly Common Fund; walk-out on the Ameri Deal (alleged inflation of the contract by $150 m) and the February 2018 walk-out over charging $25,000 and $100,000 for access to the President, Nana Akufo-Addo.
All these were led by Hon. Muntaka and Okudzeto Ablakwa. As far as possible, we expect our representatives would be guided by the principle: “avdi alteram partem (let the other party be heard or listen to the other side) one of the elements of natural justice. (Of course, the other element of natural justice is ‘nemo judex in causa sua’ – one cannot preside over his own case).
With the present position of NDC having 2/3 majority, what can’t NDC do in Parliament? 184 seats in Parliament, after Ewurabena Aubyyn win at Ablekuma North can. With this number “we can do many good things for this country” so says Mahama Ayariga, and who will be jealous of them with this super-majority? NDC sat in opposition and reviewed their performance when they were in power: their pluses and minuses.
How many NPP MPs see themselves as “representing” people in their constituencies, and not themselves? How many times do they visit their constituencies to engage “opinion leaders” there and get guided by their advice? Kwame Jantuah calls the walk-out “infantile” and others ask why the NPP MPs cannot “strategize” properly, and rather choose to play to the gallery. Others attribute all these to the lawlessness that has unfortunately beclouded the once-attractive party.
Those who benefitted under Akufo-Addo see nothing wrong; they could be family and friends, or bedfellows and cronies. This cannot be the NPP we all laboured for in the 1990s and back in 2000s. This cannot be the NPP we toiled for as far back as the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Who wouldn’t be fed up with slogans? One “this,” one that “; who would not be fed up with such songs as “Nana, nana, oye Winner…” (Lumba is gone, and with his quietus, the propaganda is over). Who can, justify the corruption?) And we thought it was, as we were told, the NDC that was corrupt? Woyome, Woyome, Woyome…”
We can see the NDC working; we don’t expect them to do magic. Who signed L. I. 2462?: Hannah Bissiw will chase illegal miners (galamseyers) to their hide-outs. More and more revelations are unfolding. Why we use GH¢30b to solve a problem of GH¢9b and collapse people’s banks? NPP members will tell you the exchange rate of GH¢11.00 to the $1.00 is a fluke. What was their track record?
A litre of petrol was GH¢15.00 and more, under NPP and will let hell loose when it comes to GH¢12.00 under Mahama – even with the “D-levy” Rice (1 kg) GH¢125 under NPP has reduced to GH¢95 under NDC … prices of goods are plummeting everywhere, and you (NPP) want to debate this?
Our advice to NDC is “stay focused.” We only seek the national interest: provide the 5000 km of roads; construct a new highway linking Accra and Kumasi; wean us from the claws of IMF – for us to give you the kudos. Of course, some of us will always reflect on Hon. Murtala Mohammed (The Tamale Central MP) – “If you put your fingers in your anus in the night, you will have smelling fingers in the day.”
