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Pollster Ben Ephson is allowing the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) to manipulate him and use his newspaper, the Daily Dispatch, to propagate "cheap, unintelligent trash”, the main opposition New Patriotic Party has said, in reference to a publication by the paper which claimed the party had a committee advising the party to lie to Ghanaians ahead of the December polls.

At a press conference addressed by acting General Secretary John Boadu, the NPP asked Mr Ephson to apologise and retract the publication which the party described as fabricated and fake.

Mr Boadu said the NPP had no committee engaged in crafting lies to hoodwink Ghanaians into voting for the NPP in the December polls, contrary to the publication in Mr Ephson’s Daily Dispatch.

Meanwhile, the party has accused President John Dramani Mahama of insulting the chiefs and people of the Western Region with his comment that Nana Akufo-Addo, flag bearer of the NPP, might have been sleeping during his campaign tour of the region recently, thus, his inability to have seen so many good roads constructed in that part of the country.

The party said the president’s comment was “un-presidential” and “insulting” to the people of the Western Region, who endure deplorable roads on daily basis.

“To him, all the people complaining about bad roads in the Western Region are sleeping. He should tell that to the commercial drivers who spend 10 hours just to travel from Sefwi-Wiaso in the northern part of the Western Region to Takoradi,” Mr Boadu said at the press conference on Wednesday, 17 August.

Mr Akufo-Addo, who is Mr Mahama’s main contender in the upcoming December polls, just completed his tour of the Western Region. During the tour, Nana Akufo-Addo questioned claims by the government that massive road infrastructure had been undertaken in the region.

But Mr Mahama, who is currently touring the Western Region, told party supporters on Tuesday, 16 August, that: “Perhaps he [Nana Akufo-Addo] was sleeping so he couldn’t see the roads.”

The NPP, however, said the president had a “false start” to his campaign by hurling “insults” at his opponents. “We all know that John Mahama is sensitive to criticism, but it gives him no excuse to use un-presidential language against his opponents, chiefs and the people of the Western Region,” Mr Boadu said.