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A National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer hopeful and a 2nd Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has criticised a drive towards what he called \u201cshowmanship\u201d in the party.<\/p>\n
He was speaking on\u00a0Eyewitness News\u00a0in relation to the Asawase NDC\u2019s hailing of John Mahama\u00a0as it paid his GHc 20,000 fee for a nomination form<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The Asawase delegation spoke highly of infrastructure development brought to the area under John Mahama.<\/p>\n But Mr. Bagbin stressed that Mr. Mahama was not solely responsible for the gains made by the NDC government.<\/p>\n Persons advocating for Mr. Mahama to lead the NDC in the 2020 polls are known to cite infrastructure development under his government as a reason to elect him as flagbearer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I hear people talking about records and they are referring that record to an individual, I know that they are lost in the whole system. The system is not one of individual showmanship. The system is anchored on a group of people who have formed an institution called a party. That is the record of that party in government and people must get the discourse right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there are failures, it is the party as a group that takes the blame\u2026 when there is credit, the credit should go to everybody,\u201d Mr. Bagbin added.<\/p>\n He suggests further that attribution of party success to one individual is why Mr. Mahama is the clear frontrunner in the NDC presidential primary race, with the other aspirants lagging sorely behind.<\/p>\n \u201cThat [hailing individuals] is how people are tempted to proclaim the concept that we are implementing and I think that is why we are having these problems,\u201d the MP observed.<\/p>\n Boycott by other aspirants<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr. Bagbin is among seven other aggrieved aspirants\u00a0in the NDC flagbearer race that have boycotted the processes for the presidential primaries.<\/p>\n In a petition, they accused some members of the party\u2019s National Executive Committee (NEC) of bias towards Mr. Mahama.<\/p>\n Alban Bagbin, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Sylvester Mensah, Stephen Atubiga, Nurideen Iddrissu, Goosie Tanoh, Kojo Bonsu, and Elikplim Agbemava, are the aspirants that are signatories to the\u00a0petition to the Council<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n In addition to Professor Joshua Alabi, they have described the fees for nomination forms and filing as unreasonable.<\/p>\n In the petition, the nine aspirants proposed that fees for collection of forms be GHS 5,000 whiles the filing fees be GHS100,000.<\/p>\n The aggrieved aspirants also feel the filing fees and other guidelines for the primaries \u201cappear to have been designed to favour of that same aspirant,\u201d who is implied to be Mr. Mahama.<\/p>\n