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Opinions of Friday, 9 December 2016

Columnist: Pobee-Mensah, Tony

Akufo Addo is being quite irresponsible

Nana Akufo-Addo Nana Akufo-Addo

By Tony Pobee-Mensah

A day before the 2016 election, I saw a video of Akufo Addo (claiming the video of the video to be two days before the election) calling on the President to make the transition a smooth one. My reaction was that people had not gone to the polls yet and Akufo Addo was behaving like he won the election.

Of course he had the right to believe anything he wanted to but these days with all kinds of things on the internet, you would think a Presidential candidate would be a little cautious putting out videos full of assumptions before the fact.

What prompted this opinion article was that I saw news report that Akufo Addo had confirmed that some of the Presidential candidates had called to congratulate him. When I saw that, I thought the results were out. Upon confirming that the results were not out, I was very dismayed that Akufo Addo would make such confirmation. He and those who are congratulating him, if they actually are, should be careful.

If Akufo Addo is not the victor when the results come out, won’t some, especially the “low information” supporters of the NPP, be justified in thinking that Akufo Addo won and Mahama stole the election from him? And couldn’t this possibly lead to violence? If Akufo Addo truly wants no violence, he would be a little more careful than he has been these past few days.

Since this could be the last hurray for Akufo Addo candidacy if he doesn’t win this time around, I will not be surprise if he is intentionally sowing the seed for violence if the result does not go his way. For the sake of our country, let’s all, including all the candidates, please be a little more responsible.