Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin’s dominance in the Tema East Constituency branch of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was on display once more on Saturday when executives of the party there scrambled for his campaign T shirts.
Scores of the executives fell over one another at Tema New Town just to grab the T’shirts of the respected veteran legislator who is aspiring for the 2020 presidential ticket of the opposition party.
“this is not surprising at all, do not be surprise either; Tema East is an Alban Bagbin stronghold…the support he has here is genuine, it is not paid for like in the case of some other aspirants,” Bernard Ayi Quaye, a Branch Youth Organizer of the party explained.
According to him, the scramble for Bagbin’s T shirt is just a matter of passionate supporters and crusaders of the Nadowli-Kaleo MP fighting for a means to wear their support openly.
During the scramble, some greedy executives had picked more than a single shirt per person. Many claimed they were going to give them to other executives who were not around at the time of the distribution of the campaign shirts.
The behaviour of the Tema East executives comes as an affirmation of an earlier declaration by the Constituency executives there that Tema East is wholly for Hon. Alban Bagbin.
In expression of their allegiance to the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, the Tema East Constituency executives have even gone ahead to request that that constituency be renamed after Hon. Alban Bagbin.
Bernard Ayi Quaye explains that, “the reason we in Tema East are solidly behind Hon. Bagbin is simple; his honesty…his willingness to address the real issues in the party.”
According to him, the real issues in the party are that, former President John Mahama has had his turn and is now a burden to the party because many people in the party, including the party fathers, are not happy with him.
Again he said, Hon. Bagbin’s promise to chart a new administration course in which the party’s executives will be rewarded, rather than abandoned the way President Mahama abandoned them during his presidency, is what the party needs now.
Most of the other executives scrambling for T shirts turned down invitation to speak to the media. Only Mr. Cosmos Okumo, another executive member spoke.
“We want to tell everybody that as for us here in Tema East, we are for Bagbin and we will show it for the whole world to see. We are not like other constituencies, we don’t hide…we know most of the other constituencies around the country are for Bagbin but are hiding, we are not hiding from anybody; Tema East is for Bagbin,” he said.
