Common observation throughout socialization in life and common sense teaches that intractable and intense emotional conflicts even when they appear to have been resolved leave residues which inform the next cycle of conflict between the same adversaries or their proxies. Whatever the short-term objective that the Speaker and his supporters have achieved, it will take an exceedingly long time for the centre to hold again now and in future Parliaments unless greed gives way to the love of our homeland Ghana.

But for the folly of the NDC and the Speaker of Parliament, the House would have been in session and holding the Chief Justice’s administrative action of closing the High Court and other courts in Bolgatanga and its environs to account for her actions on the spurious reasons assigned and the unprecedented nature of her action in the history of Ghana taken so close to an election on 7 December 2024 that must be free, fair, and transparent under the 1992 Constitution.

I am not a coward or a liar in the terms of the question posed by Michela Wrong in her seminal book on corruption – “It’s Our Turn to Eat.” Like German Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, I am quite happy to be called a coward because my strategic and tactical objectives are beyond their comprehension. Kofi Attor, the Speaker of Parliament’s Chief of Staff, also knows that I am not a liar. As a shot across the bow, Joy FM and Kofi Attor may wish to read the tip of the iceberg reported on: Alban Bagbin admits he is corrupt (audio) - Graphic Online. The evidence has always been in plain view all over the internet.

The NDC can close its eyes to their self-confessed corrupt Speaker refusing to divulge his ailment for which the taxpayer doles out millions of cedis and foreign currency in Dubai but can use the “dire need of funds because of the economic crisis” as a reason for rejecting the tax waivers it has similarly approved under the NDC and NPP Governments until the dawn of the next elections in a few months time on 7 December 2024. Every patriot has a duty to ensure that the 1992 Constitution is defended, and the electorate is not Zombified into merely voting for rhetoric instead of on credible and cogent facts, and evidence meriting their votes.

I wish to state for the avoidance of doubt that Mr. Bagbin shall never have a withdrawal and apology from me for words I never used in my article published in the media on 27 May 2024 which are variously true, justifiable, and constitute fair comments or questions on public matters pertaining to a public officer, the Speaker, in the public interest. By Mr. Bagbin’s statement to all media houses he implicitly admits that he is a self-confessed corrupt person which means that he has no reputation whatsoever that can be defamed by me.

I am raising my finger in this rejoinder against the wanton violations of the rights of the people of Ghana in the use of the military by the Government to brutalize the very electorate that brought it into power. We the people are sovereign under the 1992 Constitution and not the Speaker, Parliament, or the executive which if let alone will continue to trample upon our sovereignty with the obnoxious show in Parliament on 13 November 2023. Ghana will rise again!

The Parliament of Ghana has not proven itself in similar situations of military brutalities on citizens of being capable of providing a non-partisan and non-transactional solution or remedy unaffected by its self-interest. The ball must be left in the hands of constitutional defence activists and human rights lawyers who can speak truth to power through the process of lawfare. The 1992 Constitution must be defended at all costs.

The contradictory conduct of the Speaker in his rulings on 25 October 2022 and 10 November 2022 has demonstrated the need for patriotic citizens to remain ever vigilant in a split parliament in which the Speaker exhibits traits of being transactional and arrogates to himself powers and authorities not conferred upon him by the Constitution and/or Standing Orders of Parliament. This conduct of the Speaker underscores the urgency with which patriotic citizens must be ever watchful of every step and pronouncement by the Speaker of Parliament.