The Jinapors and the Interesting Happenings of Ghana’s 8th Parliament

The current 8th Parliament of the 4th Republic has a lot to ponder over and its interesting happenings.

For the first time, the house has a leading member of the opposition party as its Speaker.Rt Hon Alban Sumani Bagbani.

For the first time, the two protagonists in Parliament have an equal number of seats ( 137 seats apiece), with the New Patriotic Party enjoying the sympathy of an independent member of the House, who comes from its stock.Hon Andrew Asiama, Member of Parliament of Fomena and a second Deputy Speaker.

It has the Speaker and his two Deputies being Catholics.
It has two blood brothers sitting in the House on opposite sides of the political aisles.

It has the sitting Vice President’s brother-in-law, that is his wife’s blood brother on an opposing seat.(NDC)

For the first time, the New Patriotic Party won a seat in one of the strongholds of the opposition National Democratic Congress, the Hohoe seat which still baffles the NDC as a political party and political watchers.

For the first time in Parliament since the inception of the 4th Republic, Ghanaians watched their MPs shamelessly trading their hands instead of demonstrating cool heads in resolving their disputes or disagreement.
Our MPs embarrassed the nation when they naively turned the chamber into a boxing arena. The world laughed at us.

Also for the first time, almost the entire membership of the majority is fighting its own Finance Minister. The caucus is asking the President to axe his or their Finance Minister, Hon Ken Ofori Atta for failing to salvage the economy.
The agitation is- going.

For the first time in the Parliamentary debates on a budget, the ‘owners’ of the budget ( majority side) somehow abandoned it.
They lackdaiscally debated it and gave the Minority a free opportunity to go haywire on the budget.

Then the Jinapors.These gentlemen are portraying to all that politics can never be a doing-and-die affair.

The senior Jinapor John represents the constituents of Kusagu Yapei. He is also the ranking member of Mines and Energy Committee. He is an NDC member and the junior Jinapor, Samuel Abu is a Cabinet Minister in charge of Lands and Natural Resources and also a Member of Parliament for Damango.
They are both from the newly created Savanna Region.

They are excellent debaters, representing their people very well and defending the principles, policies, and programs of their various parties.They are a delight to listen to when debating.

They are seen walking, chatting, and at times eating together together in Parliament. They are friendly to all and ready to assist. They are making politics interesting and innocuous.

I commend their parents,electorates, parties, and their appointing authorities for gifting the nation with such brains in the development and growth of our nascent democracy.

This is to send the signal out to the supporters of their political parties not to hate, fight and maim each other because of politics.
It is also to establish the fact that, joining a political party is an optional decision.

The natural law and our grund norm,the 1992 Constitution, have given all the right to make their own choice especially when it comes to joining a party.
Abu went for NPP and John for NDC, no wahala, no fight, no insult, it is only a matter of choice.

These brothers must be commended for their smart ness and intelligence.
Their debates are rich. Abu normally debates on the legal line and John on economics and energy lines.

When Abu wanted to contest as a Member of Parliament, he went to Damango their mother constituency and declined to contest against his brother, John glued to Kusagu Yakpei, their father’s consistency.

Both are qualified to contest in any of the constituencies.
I hope and pray that other families or friends will emulate these distinguished assets of our political culture.

Our current Parliament is a dandy one.
The Jinapors are political pace-setters.

Ghana’s Democracy will be rich with such innocuous brothers, doing their politics from different sides without any rancor.
Hope for our nation.

Ahmed Osumanu Halid
Nima-441