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Professors in Parliament are 'mumu' - Bagbin
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- Created on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 00:00
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Professors in Parliament are 'mumu' - Bagbin
Mr Alban Bagbin, MP for Nadowli West constituency, has indicated that parliamentary work is not meant for just anybody, noting that although there were several professors in the House, they had not been loud in enough to make the desired impact.
Mr Bagbin, who is also the Minister of Health, was addressing students in his area when he launched his re-election bid for Parliament.
{sidebar id=12 align=right}Advising the students to not let anybody deceive them with university degrees, the former Majority Leader said the professors who get into politics lose their fondness for speaking, describing many as 'mumus' - people who cannot talk.
“We have so many professors in Parliament, very many professors but many of them are 'mumus' (dumb), so Parliament is a different ball game.”
He prayed for the day when parliamentary proceedings would be telecast live to expose such professors.
“And very soon we are going to put a channel on Parliament, so that you can also see the performance of your MPs and properly assess them, and [so that you] don’t allow all charlatans to try and talk about becoming MPs.”
Joy News’ Upper West Regional correspondent, Rafiq Salaam said Mr Bagbin, who is seeking to go to Parliament for the six consecutive term would be campaigning on the slogan: Bagbin: the longer, the better.
He touted his achievement in the constituency, stressing that ever since the people gave him the mandate to represent them in the august House, he has “never done anything to disgrace" them.
He said: “It is not because I am the best in this constituency, I have never been the best but at least since I have been an MP, I have held high the flag of Nadowli constituency, since I have been an MP I have marketed Nadowli West, Nadowli district to the whole world.”
From:Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com
No comments2012 elections: Two file forms; filing closes tomorrow; balloting on Friday
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- Created on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 00:00
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2012 elections: Two file forms; filing closes tomorrow; balloting on Friday
{sidebar id=12 align=right}The Electoral Commission set October 17 and 18 for filing of nomination forms, but by the close of the first day, only two parties – New Patriotic Party and Progressive People’s Party – out of the 23 registered political parties, have successfully gone through the process.
The exercise took place in Accra and other regions of the country.
After receiving the forms for one of the presidential candidates, Ghana’s Electoral Commissioner, Dr Afari Gyan was convinced that balloting for positioning of all candidates for the December 2012 elections would be done on Friday, October 19, 2012.
“Subject to agreement by the other candidates to be, when they hopefully become candidates we will do the balloting for the positions on Friday around 11am,” he told the media.
Both presidential and parliamentary candidates are supposed to present their completed forms, banker’s drafts and tax clearance certificates before they will be endorsed by the EC.
Meanwhile, Principal Public Relations Officer of the EC Sylvia Annor told Joy News Wednesday that there were “no hitches” when the two parties filed their forms today.
“They were able to satisfy all the necessary requirements. They have therefore been given the green light to proceed with proper campaigning,” she said.
For those who have not yet submitted their forms, Mrs Sylvia Annor warned that if they fail to do so by 5pm tomorrow, “that is the end of the road for you in 2012”.
NPP running mate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, General Secretary Kojo Owusu Afriyie and Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey presented documents on behalf of the party's presidential candidate Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey told the EC briefly: “We have all come in the name of the Lord. We are all seeking his guidance and continuous protection… We pray that he uses his tools, that is, the voters of Ghana to see his work done.”
After filing for Nana Addo, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia told journalists the party is sure of winning the elections, based on fact that “The campaign is going well… people can’t wait for a change and SHS has been totally accepted, so we are excited going into this election.”
He described as “flimsy” various arguments being raised against NPP’s flagship programme, free senior high school education.
The PPP’s Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom who also submitted his forms today pledged to run a clean campaign.
He later told the media at a press conference that the PPP now is ready to contest both parliamentary and presidential elections.
He also urged the EC to investigate all political parties’ sources of funding, especially the ruling NDC which is allegedly being funded by a Chinese firm, Huawei.
From:Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com
Rawlings Is The Biggest Conman In Town...He Should Be Jailed - Kofi Wayo
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- Created on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 00:00
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Rawlings Is The Biggest Conman In Town...He Should Be Jailed - Kofi Wayo
Fresh from launching his national campaign in the Ashanti Regional capital of Kumasi over the weekend, founder and leader of the United Renaissance Party (URP), Chuck Kofi Wayo, yesterday breezed into town with two salvo in hand.
The first was that, he was going to name his running mate for the December 2012 presidential elections today Wednesday, while the second was that, “Jerry Rawlings is the biggest conman in town”.
In respect of his running mate, Chuck preferred to keep his cards to his chest, but in the pounce on Rawlings, Wayo was almost loquacious.
Yesterday, the URP patriarch told The Enquirer in Accra that it served the National Democratic Congress (NDC) right that Ex-President Rawlings was all over the place kicking dirt on the government because the NDC had refused to heed his warning that the former President was a conman with selfish motives.
{sidebar id=12 align=right}“I warned them several times about this guy but they did not listen, it serves them right that he is sabotaging them openly,” Wayo charged.
On Saturday, Mr. Rawlings hoisted the hands of his wife as the Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Party (NDP) a breakaway from the NDC, and predicted the failure of all NDC Parliamentary candidates in the upcoming December elections, even though he insists he is a member of the NDC.
The endorsement of the presidential ambition of his wife coming on the heels of an uncharacteristic visit to him by Nana Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who particularly made it a point to humiliate Rawlings and his wife while he was Attorney General in the Kufuor regime, has revealed the shady calculations of Rawlings to undermine the NDC. But Chuck Wayo's beef with Mr. Rawlings goes beyond the former President's commotion agenda in the NDC. “You know I have intelligence on him (Rawlings) that will shock Ghanaians about how this man who came to power preaching one-man-one-toilet left office with a lot of the wealth of Ghanaians in his name,” Mr. Wayo said.
Of all atrocities inflicted on Ghanaians, Chuck was of the opinion that the etching of the indemnity clause in the 1992 Constitution was the most insulting.
Calling the executions of Generals Afrifa, Acheampong and Akufo as cold blooded murders, Mr. Wayo said the indemnity clause in the constitution represented the joke that Rawlings came to brutalize Ghanaians and then smartly tweaked the constitution to escape justice.
Earlier in the year, a constitution reform commission that was constituted by late President Mills to work out proposals for reform recommended that the indemnity clause in the 1992 constitution, which indemnifies all coup makers, in the political history of Ghana, be left untouched. “And so if you are President you should be free to kill, steal and brutalize your own people and then walk free just because you were President?” the URP flag bearer asked.
Kofi Wayo said, the most befitting place for Mr. Rawlings, under the modern dispensation is prison.
Source: The Enquirer
First encounter with Mrs Rawlings unimpressive – Journalists
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- Created on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 00:00
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First encounter with Mrs Rawlings unimpressive – Journalists
{sidebar id=12 align=right}Some journalists who turned up for the first media encounter with the flag-bearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, say they were unimpressed with the way and manner she answered their questions.
Though some admitted that the former First Lady is an “intelligent person”, they believed she decided to give simple and direct answers, and at times “brushed some of them aside” to avoid drawing attention to her person.
In her presentation that lasted for about five minutes, Mrs Rawlings said placing people at the center of all national policy direction will be her prime objective if she is elected president.
The former First Lady says her over twenty years role in empowering women in the country has given her a better appreciation of the challenges confronting women and children.
“We cannot continue to underestimate our productive potential because existing policies are blocking the people from harnessing their potential,” she said.
During the question time, one of the journalists put to her that she is in the race just to ensure the defeat of the NDC and not really to win, and another journalist asked about the influence of former president Rawlings on her decision to contest the presidency on the ticket of the NDP and there was also another on corruption.
Even though she responded to their questions, some of the journalists told Joy News her responses were quite short and not detailed enough for someone with very little time to campaign.
“I wasn’t too satisfied with the answer she gave me, because those were direct questions that I asked but I think most of the questions that came she found a nice way of going around them. For me it leaves a lot of doubt…so the next time I will advise that her handlers will be in a better position to tell her to be forthright. These were just simple direct questions that require direct answers. I think she didn’t do badly.”
Another said: “There was not much of a policy statement that I was expecting. Also some of the questions too, the answers were not forthcoming.”
But a political science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kwasi Amakye thinks the journalists were “running ahead of her”, and asked that she is given some time to settle in the already heated political terrain.
He believes Mrs Rawlings’ news conference was to "address certain issues" and to declare herself to the Ghanaian public, contrary to what the journalists thought would be setting out of her policy statement.
“At the right time the party will come out with their policy statement,” he anticipated.
“We should give her time, and her party time to sit down and work things out and come out with areas they want to look at.”
From:Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com
Ade-Coker Blows Konadu’s Cover
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- Created on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 00:00
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Ade-Coker Blows Konadu’s Cover
The battle for ‘ownership’ of the principles of probity, accountability and social justice between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the National Democratic Party (NDP) appears to be gathering steam.
NDC Founder Jerry John Rawlings insists the party has lost these principles hence his decision to support his wife’s move to the NDP, while members of the NDC say the former First Couple have lost the moral right to accuse anybody of a lack of principle.
{sidebar id=12 align=right}The latest salvo in the debate has been fired by the N.D.C chairman for the Greater Accra region, Joseph Ade Coker who has accused the N.D.P flagbearer of buying state property whiles in office as First Lady.
Speaking on Adom FM’s flagship political programme Nea Mehunu on Monday October 15, 2012 Mr. Ade Coker strongly questioned the Rawlings family’s oft-touted stance on probity and accountability when Mrs. Rawlings was allegedly buying the Star Hotel, Caridem and G.N.T.C properties with government loans.
Chairman Coker told show host Afia Pokua that neither Mrs. Rawlings nor her husband can claim “righteousness” during their 19 years in office and advised them to stop pointing accusing fingers at others in the N.D.C.
He questioned why Mrs. Rawlings schooled her children abroad against despite public concerns though her children could have received similar education from local public universities.
‘Apart from Jesus Christ, all of us are fallible therefore if we are talking about others, we should beware of our own errors as well’ he said.
The NDC Chairman said the N.D.C is not perturbed about the impact of Mrs. Rawlings and the N.D.P, especially in the Greater Accra region adding that they are focused to support President Mahama to better the life of the masses by ‘telling the better Ghana story of the government’.
Mr. Coker says he believes in the discernment of the ‘foot soldiers’ in analyzing the merits of the accusations against the Mahama government, asking how many foot soldiers and cadres were transformed into millionaires during the combined 19 year tenure of the PNDC and NDC governments under Mr Rawlings.
The Greater Accra region, he says, is firmly behind President Mahama who continues to attract numerous volunteers, campaigning in support of his vision.
He predicted that the N.D.C would win 28 of the 34 seats in the region.
Source: adomonline.com