Former Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak has been detailing what will happen should James Gyakye Quayson be convicted and imprisoned.

Speaking in an interview on JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday, he said the embattled former legislator will still hold on to the Assin North seat even from prison if he wins the by-election.

“I have told him 'chief, you may end up in prison but you will keep the seat',” he told Evans Mensah.

This, in his view, is due to the fact that a lot of freedom fighters had gone to prison for the wrong reasons yet they survived it.

He cited former President Kwame Nkrumah saying, the “late Mr Nkrumah was in prison when he became a Member of Parliament.”

According to the Asawase MP, he has been preparing Mr Quayson for this day since he was the Minority Chief Whip.

He noted that he is optimistic that Mr Quayson will survive the turn of events in his case as well as emerging victorious in the by-election.

“He is used to a system where the system works for everybody. I mean you could predict how things could happen and he comes into a system where you cannot predict anything and it’s like initially he gets almost depressed so to prepare that person for him to get to where he is, believe me, if this thing had happened within the first 6 months when he became a Member of Parliament, maybe it will be a different thing.

“But it happened at a time that he is really prepared mentally for it. And you heard him saying that even if you like get me a room in the court where I have to be sleeping in the court for the trial I will still win. That is all we needed for him to be mentally tough and be ready to go through all the hell that he may be put through but will still win the seat,” he stressed.

When asked whether it was not constitutionally impossible for Mr Quayson to keep the seat even in prison because once you are convicted, you cannot keep the seat, Mr Muntaka replied in the negative.

According to him, he was present in the House when during former President Kufuor's era, an MP was incarcerated.

He said the House appealed over the matter, adding that the former MP kept his seat during the appeal until he was pardoned.

For this reason, he believes that “next week Tuesday, Gyakye Quayson is going to keep his seat”, adding that “they can do their worst.”