A member of the Nana Akufo Addo campaign team Mr. Kwabena Agyapong has described the recent National Commission on Civic Education survey as a “statistical dead heat” While he did not entirely rubbish the results of the survey, the margins of error for him did not add up. The results of the survey put the ruling New Patriotic Party behind its rivals the National Democratic Congress, but Mr Agyepong believes the results of the survey was not the least disturbing to the NPP. According to him the party will be focused on its campaign but would use some of these information as its guide “As a political party every information we are privy to especially if we did not put any cost to it, we are happy to take it and work with it.” Mr Kwabena Agyapong made these pronouncements on Joy F.M.’s news analysis programme News File on Saturday. He said the survey rather proved the resilience of the party, adding that the record of the government will speak for itself in the upcoming election. “For a country that has been in power for nearly eight years, considering what has happened in the world in the last 12 months with crude oil prices hitting nearly $150 per barrel, to be still in a statistical dead heat with an opposition that says it will win the election then it tells you we are still on track.” He however advised the NCCE to focus on its core constitutional duty in furtherance of the county’s democracy. A member of the panel Mr. Kojo Asante, a Research Fellow at the Center for Democratic Development (CDD) was outright, saying the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) were out of their remit in conducting such a survey “They have no business in doing this” he remarked. He expressed shock at the timing of the release of the survey when most of the chaos that had dogged the on-going voter’s registration exercise according to him had been attributed to the paucity of education by the NCCE. “If they have enough funds they have to channel them into their core function of educating people on their civic responsibility.” According to him the NCCE is part of a number of state institutions, including the National Media Commission, Electoral Commission, Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) whose role is pivotal in the consolidation of our young democracy. Whilst applauding the efforts of CHRAJ and EC, Mr. Asante says the NCCE and NMC needed to be resourced in order to undertake their constitutional mandate. Even though the survey was in favour of the National Democratic Congress, the campaign coordinator of the party Mr. Alex Segbefia says he does not put any premium on polls conducted by any institution except the NDC. “If polls were anything to go by Kwabena Agyapong would have been the presidential candidate” he said rather jokingly. According to him the NDC has a game plan which it will stick to in order to win the up coming elections. He called on all party activists to be vigilant ahead of the December elections. Author: Nathan Gadugah