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Opinions of Sunday, 20 March 2016

Columnist: Amoadu, Afua

Mahama listed among 3 top rated presidents in the world - Rejoinder

President John Ibrahim Mahama President John Ibrahim Mahama

After the diplomatic debacle in his recent travel to Scotland, where opposition members of the Scottish Parliament snubbed the President of Ghana, operatives of the Ghanaian government quickly put up a false story, stating that President John Ibrahim Mahama has the third highest approval rating in the world. Read the story at " http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Mahama-listed-among-3-top-rated-presidents-in-the-world-423831.



First of all, our investigations show that there is no known "Intelligence community" which rates governments across the globe. We are authoritatively informing Ghanaians that "Intelligent community cited in the article is a mirage! The article did not state where this so called Intelligence Community is registered and who constitutes its panel or membership! Institutions that rate the performance or popularity of leaders in particular are known and registered as such for obvious reasons!



The said article cited that the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, led the pack of highly rated world leaders by 89.9 percent. The rating cited in the article about Putin was conducted by Russia's State-run pollster VTsIOM, which stated that a record 89.9 percent of Russians approved of Putin in its latest weekly survey — up from 86.6 percent a week earlier and above the previous record of 89.1 percent in June 2015. The pollsters at VTslOM flatly denied to our intelligent sources that they conduct polls on President Mahama recently!



The second most popular leader mentioned by the article is Bolivia's Evo Morales with 58 percent! This figure is incorrect! A recent poll revealed that at least 76 percent of Bolivians approve of Evo Morales' performance so far in office, since he was re-elected. The latest poll was conducted by Ipsos, a French research company last year. An Ipsos poll taken in September 2015 of 3,000 adults across Bolivia showed that 68 percent of the poor supported Morales;30 percent of that support came from the highest income groups. The same poll showed that in rural areas, Morales enjoys about 84 percent support. One may ask where did the Ghanaian media got the 58 percent from? Ipsos denies polling the Ghanaian leader's popularity!



More Ghanaians trust opposition political parties than they trust President John Mahama, according to the latest Afro Barometer survey published by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) a while ago. In that latest most credible survey conducted by Afro Barometer shows that 45 per cent of Ghanaians say they trust opposition political parties, only 40 per cent said they trust President Mahama. In fact, the President's trust rating has dropped significantly since he was elected in 2012 by as much as 16 per cent. According to the survey, 56% of Ghanaians trust the Ghana Armed Forces far more than the President. The President's party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), is also one of the least trusted institutions in the country. Only 36% trust the governing party. Most Ghanaians, members of the opposition and even some members of the ruling NDC party accuse officials of the government of being corrupt. The Survey sampled opinions of 2400 respondents between May and June in all the ten regions of the country. The respondents' levels of confidence were measured by asking how they trust these institutions: "trust a lot or somewhat", and "trust a little" or "not at all".



The religious bodies were the most trusted institutions, scoring 63% followed by traditional leaders with 50%. The least trusted institution is the Ghana Revenue Authority 33% with the local government body trailing by 34%. Project Coordinator of the Afro barometer survey is Daniel Armah Attoh.



It is therefore ludicrous for operatives of the Mahama led administration to think that they can invent a fake report, purportedly written by an mysterious intelligence community, to fool Ghanaians and after the "Scottish debacle"!



Amoadu Afua

Amoadu2016@gmail.com