NDC members condemn Rawlings for shunning Okoe Vanderpuye

Alfred Okoe Vanderpuye, when the later attempted to engage him in a conversation ahead of President John Mahama's final State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday.

In a video which has gone viral on the internet, Rawlings appeared to tell Vanderpuye to get out and leave him alone, as he strode across the red carpet into the chamber of parliament.

While Rawlings' conduct was praised by some members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), it did not sit with several members of the NDC, especially the youth, many of whom took to social media to express their anger and disgust.

Some pointed out bluntly that former President J.A. Kufuor would not have behaved in such a manner.

They asserted that Rawlings had become a self-serving liability to the NDC and stressed the need for the party to get rid of him as soon as possible.

Condemning what they called Rawlings' disrespectful conduct, they also accused the former president of ungratefulness, saying that Vanderpuye had aided the parliamentary campaign of his daughter, Ezanetor, by using his position as Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) chief to help facilitate her campaign's clean-up exercises at the Klottey Korle Constituency in Accra.

Jerry Rawlings

Meanwhile, has learnt that the bad blood between Rawlings and Vanderpuye can be traced to the period when Prof. John Evans Atta Mills was president.

Vanderpuye is understood to have openly taken the side of Atta Mills in his public fights with Rawlings, saying publicly once to the then president: "We are solidly behind you."

His bold support for Mills is said to have angered Rawlings, who apparently has still not forgiven the AMA CEO for his role in what the former president deemed were efforts to isolate and contain him within his own party - one that he founded.

To compound matters for Vanderpuye, Rawlings sees him as belonging to a crop of government officials whose brazen corruption and gross ineptitude resulted in a staggeringly and incomprehensible defeat for the party in the December 2016 general elections.

Alfred Okoe Vanderpuye

With Rawlings said to be making moves behinds the scenes to take back the NDC from the Mahama faction, he appeared to have interpreted Vanderpuye's conciliatory effort to reestablish relations as unacceptably opportunistic, hence the decision to viciously snub the mayor and embarrass him publicly.

Despite the stinging criticism his action has provoked, Rawlings has been praised by many on social media who argue that the former president was simply being true to himself.

In a related development, President Mahama's security was breached when a women held on to him and refused to let go as he made his way to his car after delivering the SONA.

Watch the video of that encounter below:

Source: yen.com