Member of Parliament for Kwadaso, Dr Kingsley Nyarko, has revealed that comments made by the MP for Tamale Central, Murtala Mohammed, against the minister for communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, on LGBT was needless.
According to him, the comments made by Mr Murtala shouldn’t have been uttered under any circumstances. He revealed that the statement by which the Tamale Central MP suggested that Mrs Owusu-Ekuful is a practitioner or a promoter of LGBT was not based on facts.
“We have been encouraging women to take interest in becoming members of parliament. So, don’t denigrate your colleague in that manner… I think Murtala has to tone done a bit. What he did to Ursula yesterday was needless, uncalled for and an attempt to denigrate or demean the person of Ursula, and that was not right…”
Dr Kingsley Nyarko
Dr Nyarko stated that it is important for members of parliament to be very careful about their utterances, especially ones made against women. He explained that unguarded remarks of such nature is a blight to parliamentary proceedings.
“Because you don’t have evidence to support that, why do you say that she is a practitioner or a promoter of LGBT? You don’t have the evidence so why do you even go there?…”
Dr Kingsley Nyarko
Furthermore, Dr Nyarko indicated that the clueless nature of Murtala Mohammed at first, in feigning ignorance of comments made and his initial refusal to apologize to Ursula Owusu-Ekuful was disrespectful to the second deputy speaker.
“When the second deputy speaker was trying to plead with you to withdraw those words, you said no and he had to even talk to Ato Forson to speak and [after] all this, Murtala didn’t even yield, undermining the authority of the speaker. That is not fair…”
Dr Kingsley Nyarko
Ursula is also noted for calling others names
On his part, Member of Parliament for Buem constituency, Kofi Adams, revealed that Ursual Owusu-Ekuful is no saint when it comes to name-calling. He revealed that the communications minister has a record of equally calling high profile person names without evidence.
“This is somebody that is also noted for calling others also names that she has no evidence for… Yesterday, when I listened, Murtala and others who spoke were clear and stated what it is they felt offended with based on the comments from the honourable member for Ablekuma West…”
Kofi Adams
Mr Adams stated that Mr Mohammed should have been given an opportunity to make proper apology. He indicated that the second deputy speaker could have spelt out the exact comment he made which warranted the apology to made.
“Unfortunately, when Murtala was asking for direction as to what exact comment, that was what generated the debate. Because Murtala said he had made a number of comments so which comment was the Speaker asking him to withdraw, because he didn’t speak into the mic. While seated there, he has said a number of things, so all he needed was proper direction… In parliament, people use all kinds of tools to go round what it is alleged that they have said…”
Kofi Adams
Moreover, Mr Adams highlighted that Murtala Mohammed was never really given an opportunity to apologize. However, he emphasized that the second deputy speaker who was presiding “cured the mischief by directing that if those comments were captured they should be expunged from the records of the House”.
“… So, we could have given the gentleman a soft landing, a way and manner that will enable him do what he wanted to do… Maybe the media should not have moved further to do further report and discussion on it…”
Kofi Adams
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