Majority Leader in the 7th parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu has apologized to the Fomena MP-elect, Andrew Amoako Asiamah.
Speaking on Joy Prime, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu said the NPP has eaten a humble pie and for the fact that the party has apologized he has also apologised.
He explained that it was not his decision to remove the Fomena MP from the party and parliament after he decided to contest the election as an independent candidate.
Meanwhile, The independent Member of Parliament elect (MP) for the Fomena constituency in the Ashanti Region, Mr Andrew Amoako Asiamah said he will sit with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) side in the 8th Parliament, beginning January 7, 2021.
He made the disclosure in an interview with the Parliamentary press corps in Parliament House on Wednesday [December 16, 2020], reports Graphic Online's Parliamentary correspondent Nana Konadu Agyeman.
READ ALSO : NPP willing to welcome Fomena MP back - John Boadu
"I'm part of the family [NPP] and I'm going back to that family," Mr Amoako Asiamah said.
Publicly breaking his silence on which side of the next Parliament he will sit, Mr Amoako Asiamah revealed that members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have already reached out to him to align with them same as those from the NPP.
But he said he has already indicated to them that he will sit with the NPP in the next Parliament.
There had been some suggestions that Mr Amoako Asiamah was going to bargain which side he will sit in the next Parliament in return for a ministerial appointment or an assurance of a protection of his seat, but reacting, he said, "I'm not going to make any specific request. Probably what might have brought the party down, was some of these decisions..., if something like that was done to me and I wasn't happy, why should I also decide to request or make a decision" like that.
"What I am looking for is to make sure that, everything that the party does is open, transparent for everybody to see that this is the way we are going. This is what I'm looking for. I'm not going to make any specific demands."
Emphasizing that he will join the NPP side in Parliament, Mr Amoako Asiamah said: "From the chiefs, the queen mothers and the good people of the Fomena constituency, this is what they are telling me, that, in spite of whatever happened, I should still be with the party."
He said there was a lot of pressure on him after the election and due to security issues, his phones were turned off and that was probably why the NPP Fomena constituency parliamentary candidate, Philip Ofori-Asante who is reported to have attempted to reach him after the election was unable to get him.
"He [Philip Ofori-Asante] is my senior brother, the contest, the game is over, so obviously we shall meet and discuss the way forward," he said.
"I understand the President [Akufo-Addo] was trying to reach out to me, personally, but like I said immediately after the elections, my phones have been off, so he made it through some people."
He insisted that the decision to remove him from the NPP and from Parliament before the end of his tenure, "as far as I'm concerned, the decision was not fair, I was not happy about it, but what can you do, it is part of life, you take it in your strides and move on." He added that the he does not hold anything against anybody.
He said an offer of an appointment in return for his decision on where to sit is not part of his principles.
"Offer is not important in my life, what is important in my life is principles and I cannot take any offer without recourse to my constituents, what my constituents have made clearly is that, whatever has happened, I should still belong to the family [NPP].
He said the decision to side with the NPP in the next Parliament was due to national interest to make the country governable.
“I will join my family NPP in the sense that if you like it or not the nation has to be governed and looking at the divisions we always had in our discourse, if I decide to even go to the other side it means we are going to make things difficult for the Executive branch of government to rule. I do not think it will be in the interest of the country to see that,†he stated.