Posted on:
www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw
Owusu
Wednesday,
November 30, 2016
The leader of the team of researchers from the University of Ghana that
predicted that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flag bearer Nana Addo Dankwa
Akufo-Addo, will win the December 7 presidential election, says he is living in
fear.
According to Dr. Isaac Owusu-Mensah who is a senior lecturer at the
Political Science Department, he is being threatened with death by some
supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) since he released
the report.
“I am being inundated with information that some NDC supporters are
threatening my life since I got involved in the opinion polls that said Nana
Akufo-Addo will win the election on December 7; and I am not taking the issue
of death lightly,” he told DAILY GUIDE via telephone yesterday.
Prior Warning
He said some of his family members, friends and colleagues have been
advising him to take precautionary measures saying, “They tell me not to take
the threats for a joke and I have assured them that matters of life and death
cannot be overlooked.”
He said he got to know that the threats could be real when one of
his family members informed him about what some NDC supporters were planning on
a social media platform they have created for their campaign.
NDC Platform
“There is a social media platform being run by some of the NDC
members and one of my family members happen to be on that platform. It was
through him I got to know for the first time what they were planning to do to
me,” according to Dr. Owusu-Mensah.
Asked whether he had informed the police about the alleged threats,
Dr. Owusu-Mensah said, “The threats are not coming directly to my phone or to
me personally so I don’t have any physical evidence to give to the police as I
speak to you.”
German Chancellor
He said that the threats heightened when after releasing the report,
NDC communicators started circulating a picture he took with German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and some opposition NPP leaders, including Nana Akufo-Addo, on a
trip to Germany.
He said the NDC communicators together with some of the party’s
regional and national executives as well as the pro-government newspapers incited
their supporters against him and that might have incensed those people to issue
the alleged threats.
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Explaining the Germany issue, Dr. Owusu-Mensah said he has been
working with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) which is associated with the
Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and which promotes conservatism and
liberalism.
He said as part of the mandate, KAS cooperates with governmental
institutions, political parties, civil society organizations and handpicked
elites, building strong partnerships and since the NPP shares its ideals, they have
that cooperation with the opposition party.
“It was during one of such partnerships that I went to Germany and
met the NPP leaders and we had that photograph taken with the German Chancellor,
but the NDC people are circulating the picture to make me look like I am
working for their opponent,” the senior lecturer posited.
“I still stand by the research findings. We went to the field to
collect data before coming out with what we saw. I believe next week is not too
far away. Let’s have patience and wait to see if we are right or wrong,” he
said.
Research
Results
The academic and his team of researchers predicted that the
opposition party would record 49.9%, while the ruling National Democratic
Congress (NDC) had an approval rating of 39.9%.
The Progressive People’s Party (PPP), the research continued, would
record 5% while the Convention People’s Party (CPP) would likely receive 1.7%;
the National Democratic Party (NDP) 1.7% and 0.2% for the People’s National
Convention (PNC).
Three per cent of respondents of the quantitative and qualitative
survey, the researchers said, were not ready to vote for an independent
candidate while 0.9% of the respondents failed to give an answer.
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