The longest-serving MP and his timely promotion to President of Parliament

In all traditional Ghanaian home settings, the oldest child in the house has many responsibilities as the most experienced adult among the children.

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The same cannot be said for the legislative arm of the government that has representatives from Ghana’s 275 constituencies.

Unlike the proverbial home environment where children grow to a certain age before moving in, MPs come and go, but some have stayed in the house longer than others, and this makes them go-to people for beginners and even some. with equal experience in legislative issues.

One of the longest-serving members of parliament is the current speaker of the Ghanaian parliament.

Born on September 24, 1957, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin has been known by many as one of the longest-serving members of parliament who has represented his people since the beginning of the first republic in 1992.

He never ran for an election in his constituency at the primary level and lost.

Path to becoming a Nadowli-Kaleo MP

It is known that he is a cultured lawyer who had his feet cut off before politics entered the scene.

Law helped him find his footing in parliament, as his legal background prepared him to represent his people and bring about the change he wanted to see on the basis of the law.

Before politics, he turned out to be the only lawyer on his side of the country living and practicing in Accra.

His experience in Accra on how the system works easily helped him delve deeper into the political field.

His first attempt to become a politician to represent his people in parliament was when the PNDC was transforming into the NDC under the leadership of the late former President Jerry John Rawlings.

Due to his legal background, he was part of a legal team to ensure a smooth transition to constitutional government.

Prior to that, he had held leadership positions at the University of Ghana, where he had the opportunity to serve and work with some members of Parliament.

MP for Nadowli-Kaleo

Under the tutelage and guidance of Professor Sam Garbah and some of his college colleagues who were already in the system, Bagbin, then 35, reluctantly competed for the position of Nadowli-Kaleo and won.

Against reasonable doubts of being a rookie in the bill’s culmination process, Bagbin entered parliament with zeal and seeking to represent his people well.

During the first parliament of the fourth republic, Bagbin in an interview with TV3 once mentioned that it was not an easy ride to be in parliament between 1992 and 1996.

“‘There was nothing like salaries, conditions of service and ex gratia payments, since they were more or less like the sacrificial lambs to structure the fourth republic,” he said in the interview.

Unfortunately, some MPs who did not have a hard skin could not withstand the heat in the system as they came out worse than they came in.

In the first parliament of the fourth republic, he was appointed president of the Parliamentary Committee on Subsidiary Legislation and vice president of the Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy, and a member of the Committee on Local Government and Rural Development.

As if to say that God was preparing him for something great, he was appointed second deputy speaker of parliament in 2017 in the seventh parliament of the fourth republic.

He served well at his best.

Since there is always a time to play and a time to retire, Bagbin chose not to compete for the Nadowli-Kaleo job he had been filling for the past 28 years.

When the party’s primaries were held, he preferred to contest the NDC standard-bearer before the 2020 elections, but unfortunately for him, he and several others lost to the standard-bearer, John Dramani Mahama.

Spokesperson of the VIII Parliament of the IV Republic

Even though he was the longest-serving MP in parliament, becoming president of parliament was not easy.

It was hinted that Bagbin would be considered as the NDC’s nomination for the post of Speaker of Parliament.

After the dissolution of parliament, which saw a great deal of drama on the parliament floor on January 6, 2021, both candidates from both sides of the chamber stood for election.

It was a tightly controlled and tense election as the incumbent president, Professor Aaron Mike Ocquaye, lost the election to the longest-serving member of parliament, Alban Bagbin.

During the scrutiny of his ballots, the deputy of Tema West, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah wanted to sabotage him by snatching the ballot.

The vigilance, sense of patriotism and duty on the part of Asawaase MP Muntaka Mubarak led to Alban Kinsford Sumana Bagbin being declared speaker of parliament.

His expertise and dedication to his duty is something that has been praised by members of both sides of Parliament.

There is no doubt that it will shake the affairs of the 8th parliament.

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