Private legal practitioner and activist Osagyefo Oliver Barker-Vormawor has described the National Democratic Congress’s two-thirds majority in Parliament as underwhelming.
He made the remark in a Facebook post reacting to a poll by Executive Director for Global InfoAnalytics Mussa Dankwah, which showed that nearly 60% of NDC delegates rate their Madina Member of Parliament Hon Francis Xavier Sosu as between average and very poor.
Mr Barker-Vormawor, who is currently serving as the Secretary of Ghana’s Constitutional Review Implementation Committee, declined to comment on the Madina MP specifically and widened his critique to the majority as a whole.
He argued that Parliament has delivered no major programmatic reforms, no dramatic change in oversight of the executive and no use of its power to address social issues facing Ghanaians, and he pointed to the absence of a true left programme.
“I predict that 2028 will decimate the NDC majority in Parliament considerably, if we don’t see that majority come into its own very quickly.”
Oliver Barker-Vormawor, Legal Practitioner and Activist
Mr Barker-Vormawor opened by noting that he had seen Mussa Dankwah’s poll. He wrote that he has no comment on the Madina MP specifically, then used the finding as a springboard to speak about the majority in general.
He stated: “I also believe that the 2/3’ds has been very underwhelming.” The post does not give the poll’s sample size or method.
No Major Reforms, Oversight or Social Action
The activist listed three areas where he sees little change. “We haven’t seen major programmatic reforms that have moved governance in any strategic direction,” he wrote. He added that parliamentary oversight of the executive has not changed in any dramatic fashion.
He also argued that the Parliament of Ghana has not used its power to address the social issues facing citizens. Mr Barker-Vormawor tied the shortfall to ideology. He stated: “It will seem the socialist left came to power without a true left programme.”
He went further and wrote: “The political Left is bereft of ideas as it has always been. No programme of liberation is yet in progress.”
Old Titans Gone, Expectations Still High
Mr Barker-Vormawor added a note of fairness to his assessment. Some of the old titans who shaped Parliament, he acknowledged, have left the House or are busy ministers. He then described the current House in blunt terms: “What we have now is a Parliament that is uninspiring.”
He suggested that the situation may be a broader legacy of the hybrid arrangement. He also noted that he may be expecting too much from a Parliament that does not know any tricks as to how to be different.
He closed with a proverb he attributed to Anloga, which made the same point about expecting more than a body knows how to give, and signed off with “Shalom.” The criticism lands against a record of earlier statements about how the majority would be used.
The Vaultz News has previously reported on a supermajority pledge, on commentary that the mandate for reform reflects public frustration, and on the party’s parliamentary majority more broadly.
Mr Barker-Vormawor’s post measures the current Parliament against that backdrop and finds it lacking. The remarks are one commentator’s assessment, and they carry no response from the NDC caucus in Parliament.
The warning about 2028 puts a clock on the debate. If Mr Barker-Vormawor is right, the ruling National Democratic Congress Majority Caucus in Parliament has limited time to show what it intends to do with its numbers.
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