Isaac Adongo is the Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central. He became a legislator in January 2017, after winning the seat in the 2016 general elections.
As a new member of Parliament, he drew attention to himself by the way he goes about his debate on the floor. His style of debate, in fact, is unique and most of his colleague MPs do not usually want to miss.
But one of his crafts in the 2022 budget debate seemed to have generated a lot of discussion among football lovers in particular.
He compared Ghana’s Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s economic management to Manchester United’s defender, Harry Maguire’s performance, describing both as poor performers and this sparked widespread discussion.
The Bolgatanga Central Member of Parliament in an interview with TV3 said the message he wanted to put across by comparing the two, eventually got lost due to the huge figure of Maguire.
”In 2022, the World Cup season, when the budget was read, the whole country was quiet. And I recall my leader now, then the ranking member of the Finance Committee said to me Adongo, this year, we are going to have a challenge with the budget and I said why? And he said, people don’t seem to be interested and the budget itself is dry the public really don’ts expect much from it. So, they are not discussing it. They are glued to their TV sets and watching football far away from here.
So, how do we get them to be interested? Its our duty to get them interested and discuss the budget. So, that was the reason why I adopted football to debate in 2022. It wasn’t out of the blue, it was a conscious, deliberate attempt to use what has engaged the people to send the message.
Unfortunately, the message got lost because I used a very important figure in football and the focus was more on him and less on the message that I was sending, which was the fact that, we had a very difficult economy. We had a Vice President that promised so much and gave us so much hope and yet he’s been very abysmal. That was exactly the message I wanted to put across and I highlighted a few indicators as a comparison between the time that they came and the time that I was debating the budget to show the contrast in terms of the mismanagement, but of course the mistake I made was that I used a very huge and popular player who was going though very difficult times as many players do and so it resonated with the people in football, because they all shared the same views of him”.
The legislator admitted he made a mistake by comparing the two. ”I could not have compared the two, I made a mistake comparing a young huge talented player who had the world in front of him and could change and could improve to what we now see as a dead horse. So, you basically could not compare the two, but I did and it has turned out when his performance improved that he’s indeed a talented young man and he could turn around, but ours is a dead horse. and I made that wrong comparison”.
Isaac Adongo says he regretted making that comparison and needed to apologise to him using the same platform. ”As human as I am I felt a burden that I had brought this young man to some level of global scrutiny and it had the impact of derailing his career. But I was happy that he took that on and worked hard to improve and so when the improvement came I thought that I needed to use the same platform that I used to criticise him, to apologise to him. I didn’t criticise him because I hate him or I know him. I criticised him because I thought what he did mirrored what I had, but he left ours miles behind and improved and became a great footballer. Manchester managers and supporters would tell you they are very pleased with his performances even though we are not pleased with our own. So, it was only natural that I apologise to him and that is exactly what I did”.
Isaac Adongo is an ardent soccer fan though.
”I’m a Chelsea supporter, but I love good football so I enjoy watching Manchester City because they play some of the best football under Pep Gadiola.”
The Bolgatanga central MP says even though he started as a footballer, he is satisfied with his current career.
”In life, you look at what is possible. At the time when I was a young boy, I chased football. But football is a short career and I do not know how it will go, because most of my colleagues who were playing football with me are struggling now. Because you retire at the age of 35 or 36 and you have a huge future ahead of you and if you don’t succeed and invest properly and plan properly and have somebody to lead you, you could actually have a very tough future. I have an opportunity now to serve my country in a different capacity. A lot of people are looking up to me to touch their lives and I believe that when His Excellency John Dramani Mahama takes the reign of government, my role will change and that will call for a different mindset, a different maturity to deal with the complex issues of our country. But at the moment I’m focused on serving my people”.
The legislator agreed his comparison of Magiure to Dr. Bawumia may not have gone down well with the Manchester United player, but he quickly forgave the MP when he apologized on the floor of Parliament in the recent debate on the budget.
Harry Maguire took to X after the apology and said “MP Isaac Adongo’s apology accepted. See you at Old Trafford soon.”
So how does the MP feel about Maguire’s reply?
”It came across to me as a relief to the young man. It means the young man has been looking forward to it and he has taken notice of the previous instances and to receive that backing from the same person on the same platform, helped his career, it helped his ego, it helps his own motivation and it tells him that somebody is watching and that he is actually on the right trajectory. So, for me I was happy that I had succeeded in taking away the pressure I had brought upon him. I succeeded in improving his ego and I had succeeded in communicating to him that look, young man you were having a difficult time. We recognise that, but you’ve been a true professional and I admire you for that. It gave me a sense of relief that I had not derailed that career which I normally say he suffered a stray bullet. He wasn’t the intended target for the bullet, but somehow it could have derailed his career. Any young man without the right focus, the right psychology and the right control over the emotions could lose his career and when he accepted the apology, I felt genuinely happy that at least I have brought back the smile on his face”.