The Vice Chairman of the Muslim Caucus of Parliament, Alhaji Yusif Sulemana, has cautioned his Chairman, Farouk Aliu Mahama, not to provoke the other members to dig into Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s religious background.
This comes in the wake of a press release issued by Alhaji Aliu Mahama after Ningo-Prampram Member of Parliament (MP) Sam George described the Vice President as a “religious prostitute”.
“Such language is offensive, disrespectful, and unbecoming of productive discourse,” the Yendi MP had stated in an earlier press release, saying such “bigotry” undermines effort by the country to ensure religious tolerance.
“It is even more harmful and counterproductive for that to come from a Honourable Member of Parliament,” Alhaji Farouk Mahama had stated.
However, Alhaji Sulemana, who is also the MP for Bole Bamboi, says Alhaji Aliu Mahama cannot be said to be speaking for the Caucus.
“Farouk is aware that the Muslim Caucus of Ghana’s Parliament, as an association, is governed by rules and decisions and their culminating press releases are taken at General or Emergency Meetings,” the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP stated in a release on Thursday, November 9.
“As Vice Chair, I and the majority of other members are not aware or have not attended any meeting at which the decision was taken to issue the above statement.”
He questioned the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP about his whereabouts when the Vice President mocked former President John Dramani Mahama “for simply referring to a Sura in the Quran”.
“Was that behaviour by Dr Bawumia appalling, reprehensible, terrible, offensive, discriminatory, and unfair?
“Such hypocrisy and unprincipled stance must not be injected into the activities of the Muslim Caucus.”
The Bole Bamboi MP insisted that a Christian, like Sam George, has the right to comment on issues related to Muslims.
“Farouk must advise his paymaster to rather focus on telling the Muslim Community what he has done for them since assuming the Vice Presidency about 7 years ago.
“Farouk must not provoke us to dig into his religious background.”