Politics of Thursday, 2 September 2004

Source: Lens

I will mention the names at the right time -Bamba

Alhaji Mocta Bamba, NPP MP for Wenchi East and former Deputy Minister was thrashed at the NPP primaries held at Wenchi last week and has decided to damn the consequences and go solo.

Mocta Bamba who made the headlines as a result of the dubious and fraudulent deals he masterminded while operating at the Castle, notably the use of letterheads of the office of the president for dodgy deals, has finally been given the red card. The people of Wenchi East did to Bamba what Kufuor and his 'accountability" office could not do to him. They, through their votes, told him that crooks and fraudsters have no place in a respectable institution such as Parliament.

It will be remembered that the Kufuor government for fear that Alhaji Bamba would open the lid on the many dubious deals going on in the presidency, could not take any serious measure against him when the shameful revelations came into the public domain and only asked him to resign.

Mocta Bamba is not ready to accept his electoral defeat, which in his view, was caused by the bad press he received when the Bamba gate erupted. Bamba's anger is that he is only being made a sacrificial lamb for fronting for the top hierarchy with regard to the many questionable deals that have swelled the bank accounts of many still in government. Owing to this, Alhaji Bamba has sworn to go independent.

In an interview with Radio Gold's James Agyenim Boateng, arguably the smoothest interviewer on the block, Mocta Bamba could hardly contain his anger and frustration at how the party hierarchy had manipulated the primaries to his disadvantage.

According to him, the eventual winner, Professor George Gyan-Baffour, was never, and has never been a card-bearing member of the party. He went further to state that Gyan-Baffour was an imposition by the Kufuor led party and that from the constituency right up to the national level, he had made it abundantly clear that should he be muscled out of the primaries, he would go solo - and that is exactly what he has vowed to do.

According to Bamba, he knows all those behind the scheming to get him out parliament and at the right time he would make their names public.

The Lens believes that the time has come for Bamba to sing a song he has been rehearsing for months now. The song it appears will not only be about those people who orchestrated the loss of his seat but may also those who have been involved in the shady deals that he spearheaded.

The people of Ghana have long been waiting to hear the full rendition of the now famous Bambaliba tune. The lens joins the chorus and urges Alhaji Bamba in the following words: "Sing Bamba, sing the Waa Waa Song. The nation waits impatiently to hear your melodious voice."