'We are in comfortable lead’ – NPP Director of Elections borrows Anyidoho's phrase

The Director of Elections for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Evans Nimako, has said analysis of election results by the party’s data analysts points to a resounding victory in the just-ended polls.

Using the same popular term in 2016 by the then incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) before it was ousted by then opposition NPP, Mr Nimako said his party was in a “comfortable lead.”

He made the comment on Joy News on Wednesday, December 9, 2020, when he sought to justify an announcement by NPP General Secretary, John Boadu, that party supporters have cause to celebrate because the governing party has won the polls.

“The General Secretary put it out there when we took the media to our collation centre and said that these are figures we picked up from all the 38,622 polling stations and we expect them to know.

“So the General Secretary informed our party members that looking at what we have collated from all these polling stations the New Patriotic Party is in comfortable lead,” he said.

The phrase “comfortable lead” became very popular a few hours to the declaration of results of the December 2016 election.

Former Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Koku Anyidoho, had said at the time that figures available to the party suggest that the NDC was winning the election despite contrary results put across by the Electoral Commission.

Koku Anyidoho used that catchphrase in his bid to give hope to NDC supporters.

However, after the EC declared the final results, it turned out the NDC had lost severely to then-opposition leader Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Nana Akufo-Addo polled 53% of total valid votes cast while then-incumbent President, John Dramani Mahama polled 44%.