Deputy Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Asokwa, Patricia Appiagyei, has directed criticism at the Speaker, Alban Bagbin and Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, demanding an immediate public apology and the withdrawal of the referral of Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin to the Privileges Committee.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, November 28, 2025, Madam Appiagyei described the referral as “political persecution” and “the cynical, diabolical, and constitutionally perverse scheme ever orchestrated” in Parliament.
She accused the Speaker and the Majority of weaponising Standing Orders to punish Afenyo-Markin for refusing to comply with what she called an “unconstitutional and internationally unlawful” resolution passed on July 22, 2025, that removed him from Ghana’s ECOWAS Parliament delegation while he was on medical leave.
She revealed that she was ambushed into the plot without consultation and vehemently rejected the move in writing on the same day, and twice demanded its reversal – letters that were ignored by the Speaker.
“The moment I learned of it, I acted decisively. I wrote to the Speaker stating clearly that I was neither consulted nor did I give consent to replace my Leader,” she told journalists.
The Deputy Minority Leader disclosed that the Speaker went ahead and forwarded her name to ECOWAS Parliament, triggering a diplomatic rebuke from the regional body.
She disclosed that on September 8, 2025, ECOWAS Speaker Memounatou Ibrahima dispatched a Parliamentary Diplomacy Mission to Accra over Ghana’s violation of Article 18 of the Supplementary Act.
“ECOWAS had to send a diplomatic mission to Ghana to remind our Parliament of the meaning of the rule of law,” she said, branding the episode a national embarrassment engineered by Speaker Bagbin and Mahama Ayariga.
She argued that Afenyo-Markin’s refusal to step down was not contempt but a constitutional duty under Articles 1, 3, and 41 of the 1992 Constitution to resist unconstitutional acts. “The Minority Leader was not being insubordinate – he was being a patriot,” she stated.
She further alleged that the Privileges Committee referral, filed by Mahama Ayariga just one day after Afenyo-Markin led the Minority in blocking a controversial Chief Justice nominee, was pure retaliation.
Outlining the Minority’s demands, she called for the immediate withdrawal of the Privileges Committee petition, describing it as a grotesque abuse of process.
She also demanded a public apology from the Speaker and Majority Leader to ECOWAS and the people of Ghana for the international embarrassment they caused, as well as the passage of a fresh resolution restoring Afenyo-Markin to the ECOWAS delegation and affirming Ghana’s commitment to the rule of law.
Additionally, she insisted that all forms of persecution against the Minority Leader by the Attorney-General’s Office, NDC operatives and party foot soldiers must cease immediately, and that NDC National Vice-Chairman Chief Sofo Azorka must finally be prosecuted for publicly threatening Afenyo-Markin’s life.
“The NPP and the Minority stand firmly with Hon. Afenyo-Markin not because of party affiliation, but because the rule of law demands it,” she said.
“We will defend him. We will defend Ghana’s democracy. And we will not rest until those who abuse power are held to account,” the Deputy Minority Leader.