A Political Marketing Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School has intimated that President Akufo-Addo was not properly prepared ahead of his interview with the BBC.

According to Dr Kobby Mensah, the President was “less buoyant, less coherent and less fluent” as compared to the interview he had with the same media house in 2016 when he was then a presidential candidate.

These descriptions, he said are understandable since ageing has taken a toll on the President.

“As President, I have the inkling that he is on top of issues only that for this interview he wasn’t properly briefed or prepared.

“But of course, we couldn’t also take out the fact that the President for the past six years, is no longer as he used to be so we can give him the benefit of the doubt,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo on Monday had a sit-down interview with Peter Okwoche of the BBC’s Focus on Africa where he highlighted strategies his government is implementing to resuscitate the economy post-Covid-19 pandemic.

While admitting that the pandemic had adverse effects on the Ghanaian economy, the President said his government has introduced recovery measures to take Ghana out of the economic trench.

“The recovery programme that we have is one that is considered very credible and it is what is going to give us the opportunity to come out of this period a stronger economy and it is that future that we are looking at when we are attracting people,” he told the BBC.

But speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday, Dr Mensah noted that the President was more comfortable discussing global issues than local challenges.

He observed that the President’s answers to all questions concerning local issues lacked specificity.

“You realise that the President could handle the global issues very well because linking the economy to the Ukraine – Russia crisis to the impact on petroleum is fantastic.

“But where I think he could rather be much more direct and more effective was the local issues which he unfortunately evaded,” he states.