The New Patriotic Party (NPP) will place much premium on election polls done by “credible” institutions such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and the like than polls done by individuals like the Managing Editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper, Ben Ephson, Communications Director of the NPP, Nana Akomea has said.

This follows Mr Ephson’s prediction that President John Mahama and the governing NDC will win the 7 December election with 52.4 percent while the NPP’s three-time presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, will garner 45.9 percent and the five other presidential candidates collectively bagging 1.7 percent of the total votes cast.

Reacting to Mr Ephson’s findings on Class91.3FM’s 12Live news programme on Monday, 28 November, Mr Akomea told Regina Borley Bortey that: “We take every poll in our stride. OK. Every poll that is made, we just take a look at it, if there’s something in it that makes sense to us, we take it. If there’s something in it that doesn’t make sense, we leave it like that.”

“There have been many polls including polls by CDD, IEA, EIU and all of these polls from credible institutions have reported that Akufo-Addo is way ahead. Even recently there was a poll by the University of Ghana Political Science Students Association or something and they also put Akufo-Addo way way ahead. We look at it and if there’s something that we can learn from it we take it and move ahead. If today Ben Ephson too has done a poll and he is saying Akufo-Addo is behind, we don’t have a problem.

Asked if Mr Ephson’s findings do not dampen the NPP’s spirit, Mr Akomea said: “Not at all, in fact it encourages us. The polls that have been done by institutions, not an individual, institutions like the IEA, like the CDD, like the EIU, those are institutions, not one individual. They all say that we are ahead so if one individual says we are behind, we done have a problem. I would place much weight on an institution than an individual because if the poll is by an institution, the likelihood of bias is reduced. A poll done by an institution as against an individual, I will place much weight on a poll done by an institution,” he added.