Ben Ephson Is Just A Shameless Mischief-Maker

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

He pontifically calls himself a pollster par-excellence; but even as former President Jerry John Rawlings had occasion to bitterly complain recently, there is a piddling little about Mr. Ben Ephson's so-called periodic polling that is credible or could be said to be worthy of our attention and moral consideration.

In the latest of such mischief, the NDC-sponsored media hack claims, rather funnily, that most of the members and supporters of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have lost faith and confidence in the merit of the Election 2012 petition hearing before the Atuguba-presided Supreme Court (See "NPP Supporters Losing Faith In Election Petition - Ben Ephson" Radioxyzonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 5/31/13).

The first problem here is that Mr. Ephson does not tell his audience precisely how his polling was conducted, and the profiles of the subjects of his polling. For instance, how many respondents were polled spread over how many regions of the country? What were the professional, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, as well as the gender description and/or orientation of those polled? And what kinds of questions were these respondents posed?

Of course, we also know that Mr. Ephson has absolutely no credible professional training in polling; and so all that one can logically conclude here is that maybe he just got a stipend and/or salary increase from his paymasters and decided to go to bat for them, by peddling such patent hot air. Needless to say, any discerning individual who has been studiously watching the Ghanaian political scene ought to be fully aware, by now, of the rank disaffection of an overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens for the Mahama government and, indeed, the decidedly outmoded pseudo-socialist policies of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC).

But even far more significant ought to be pointed out the fact that the Election 2012 petition is definitely not about whether anybody thinks or believes that the Akufo-Addo Revolution has merit. The latter has already been eloquently affirmed by the decision of the Supreme Court to hear the petition and make a critically considered pronouncement on the same. And so, really, other than seeking to make an abject nuisance of himself, it is not clear what Mr. Ephson is talking about.

And when he names Mr. Kwame Pianim, Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe and that insufferably obnoxious odd-ball and butterball who virtually ran the Volta River Authority aground, as well as criminally pocketing at least half of the funding for the Ghana@50 independence anniversary celebration, as "hardcore supporters" of the NPP, one immediately begins to wonder whether it is not about time that Mr. Ephson checked himself into a mental asylum or seek psychiatric reevaluation and rehabilitation.

What I am increasingly beginning to admire about the man, though, is the fact that Mr. Ephson appears to be an indefatigable propagandist who takes himself and his politically-inflected opinions far more seriously than he obviously ought to.

__________________________________________________________ *Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. Department of English Nassau Community College of SUNY Garden City, New York June 1, 2013 E-mail: [email protected] ###