2016 presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Mr Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, has lashed out at the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament and presidential hopeful of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Alban Bagbin, over his comments about people with disabilities.

Mr Greenstreet stated that he would petition the Speaker of Parliament to refer Mr Bagbin to the Privileges Committee for what he said were “unsavory and unacceptable remarks un-befitting of the high office of the Speaker.”

In an interview with DAILY GUIDE, he roared: “Does the hump on Bagbin’s back make him un-whole? In fact, I’m shocked and saddened that someone I’ve often spoken with, who incredibly was a whole former Minister of Health and, who I thought was a nice man, liberated and well-educated, was actually a Philistine.”

Continuing he said, “The legs of one of United States of America’s presidents who served for an unprecedented four terms, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were paralysed from polio, yet he became one of their most revered leaders.”

Dr. Danaa, he said, is a highly-educated and accomplished fellow with a PhD in law and distinguished career in the Civil Service rising to the top of his profession by dint of hard work which is far more than what Bagbin could say of himself.

Background

Mr. Bagbin in a recent interview chastised former President John Mahama for appointing a “blind person” as minister of chieftaincy affairs.

According to the longest serving Legislator under the Fourth Republic and current Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, the decision by President Mahama to appoint Dr. Daanaa who is visually impaired as Chieftancy Minister cost the NDC in the 2016 polls.

He said; “In our tradition if you are not whole can you be a chief or a queen mother? So when you form a government and make the minister for chieftaincy a blind person, and the chiefs are objecting and you don’t change it, what are you telling the chiefs?

“These are facts I’m stating, I have not added anything. You all know it but maybe you may not have appreciated the impact on what happened.  And when some of us are close and we can foresee it and we say it, then they are called upon to insult us.”