Moderate the IEA debate because he was a fair person – Prof. Opoku-Agyemang

General news for Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

2020-10-13

I moderated the IEA debate because I was a fair person – Prof. Opoku-Agyemang The running mate of the standard bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has said that she did not represent the party when she moderated a Presidential debate organized by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in 2012.

John Dramani Mahama’s running mate said on a Citi TV current affairs show that she was “not even in the country” when she was invited to moderate the debate.

“I was not invited to that debate by the NDC. Far from there. They invited me to that debate because someone thought it would be fair and I liked that fairness, ”he said.

Professor Opoku-Agyemang also refuted claims that she had been invited by then-President John Mahama.

“At the time, I’m not sure I could have been called a prominent member of the NDC,” she told The Point of View host Bernard Koku Avle.

He also refuted accusations that he leaked questions to then-President John Mahama saying that the moderators had not created the question bank. “The question bank was not created by us … The person is there to explain why they do not want the position to you, but to the audience,” he said.

Professor Opoku-Agyemang was at the time coming out of her tenure as Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast.

She said she hoped she could finally focus on her work on UNESCO’s executive board and was preparing for a three-week meeting in France when she was informed of her selection as moderator of the presidential debate.

Professor Opoku-Agyemang also asserted that her role in the IEA debate did not influence her later becoming Minister of Education under the Mahama administration.

He said that the people who thought they gave him the position because I was moderating the debate “don’t know me. Do you think that was all he could have negotiated if that was the case?

His fellow moderator during the debate was Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, then a journalist for the Multimedia Group is currently the Minister of Information in the government of Nana Akufo-Addo.

John Mahama, Nana Akufo-Addo, the standard bearer of the National People’s Convention (PNC), Hassan Ayariga, and Dr. Abu Sakara of the Convention People’s Party participated in the debate.