General News of Friday, 13 December 2002

Source: .

Bagbin May Quit Politics

The Minority Leader Hon. Alban Bagbin has expressed his willingness to quit politics since he has impacted positively on the political landscape in the country.

Bagbin, who is also the Member of Parliament for Nadowli South, said the decision however depends largely on the leadership of his party, the National Democratic Congress and the people he represents. He made the disclosure in an interview he granted to a local radio station. Bagbin said because of politics, he has lost so much as a legal practitioner in terms of knowledge and wealth and noted that most of his professional colleagues are now ahead of him. On the National Reconciliation Commission, he described the window of opportunity offered to some people as discriminatory and questioned why should some people pass through the door while others through the window.

Bagbin revealed that at a workshop on NRC at M-Plaza hotel, Speaker of Parliament Peter Ala Adjetey stressed the need for the reconciliation process to begin from 1957 and wondered why the NPP government did not adhere to the Speaker’s position. He took a swipe at the composition of the commission and mentioned Gen. Emmanuel Erskine, Justice A.K. Ampiah and Rev. Charles Palmer-Burkel as people whose actions and inactions have shown that they have something against the Rawlings led-regimes. “How can Gen. Erskine, a former member of the Acheampong regime preside over his own regime as a reconciliation member,” Bagbin remarked. He lambasted the NPP over the size of its government and said it is only the Kufour government in the nation’s political history that has advisors and special assistants with conditions almost as ministers.