Pollster Ben Ephson has said a videotape which the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) claims is evidence of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo accepting a bribe will not hurt the President in the upcoming elections.
According to him, the timing of the release of the video is too close to the elections on December 7 and would likely make an insignificant dent in the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP)'s campaign to retain power.
“It is too late in the day. Chances are that it was released too late. Definitely, some people will believe it, but the NPP is also fighting back so the effect will be insignificant,” he told GhanaWeb on Thursday, December 7, 2020.
Ben Ephson’s comment is in reaction to NDC’s allegation that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo took a bribe of $40,000 in the early days of his Presidency.
The President allegedly took the bribe to retain an appointee of former President John Dramani Mahama in office despite calls to get him removed.
The NDC backs the allegations with a video it says was made by an investigative journalist.
The governing NPP and the government communication machinery have discredited the video as fake.
The NPP says the video was made when Nana Akufo-Addo was in opposition and not when he was President as the NDC has claimed.
The question, however, remains as to why Nana Akufo-Addo was personally taking the cash and not his campaign team.
Meanwhile, Ben Ephson said a recent controversy stirred by the flagbearer of the NDC in the upcoming elections, Mr Mahama, about the free SHS policy affects the chances of floating voters believing the NDC in the latest alleged exposé.
Mr Mahama courted public ridicule when, while on a campaign trail, he claimed that the NDC introduced free SHS in 2015.
The free SHS was the NPP and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s major campaign promise in the lead up to the 2016 elections. The policy was officially launched a few months after the NPP took over the reins of government in 2017.
“Free SHS has been there all along, you never made any such comment, and after three-and-half years, you come out to say you introduced it. If you are floating voter would believe that? And there are videos of you [John Mahama] criticising the policy,” Ben Ephson said.
Mr Ephson was emphatic when he said the latest video and the attempt to tag Akufo-Addo corrupt, with just four days to elections, will not hurt the NPP’s chances.
Ben Ephson is a Pollster