Anita Desooso
The General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has stated that Anita Desooso, a vice chairperson of the opposition NDC, did not have the consent of the party to apologize to former President Jerry John Rawlings.
According to Mr Nketiah, the party’s former National Women’s Organizer openly apologised to Mr. Rawlings – founder of the party on her own volition, virtually telling her that she deserves the embarrassment that greeted her at Madina.
Mr. Rawlings openly castigated Anita at the event for excessive bleaching and advised her to put a stop to it.
What Offence?
“As we speak now, nobody knows the offence for which Anita was apologising for. We called her to a meeting after the incident and tried to find out what offence she was referring to but she couldn’t answer, so we consider it to be her personal issue with the founder,” the NDC scribe told Joy FM yesterday.
“I am talking to you as chief executive of the party and the person who keeps the records of decisions of the party,” Mr. Asiedu Nketiah insisted, adding “I am telling you that we never at any point discussed the possibility or anything about approaching the founder (Mr. Rawlings) and apologising for anything.”
Desooso’s Antics
Anita Desooso caused a stir during the 39th Anniversary celebration of the June 4th Uprising held at the Madina Social Welfare Centre in Accra when out of the blue she knelt before the former President, held his legs and asked him to forgive her and the NDC because she said Mr. Rawlings was the father who brought her to political limelight.
She said specifically: “Now to my father – founder (Rawlings), I know your children we’ve erred, and I also know that you’re a human being and you have also done something; maybe it is not right and I was so happy when I heard you say that when you brought that statement out rendering an apology – you are a hero. You are a hero.”
She added, “This shows that what you have taught me is still within me. If you are a leader, be prepared to say that I’m sorry. If you’re a child, be prepared to say that daddy I’m sorry. So I’ll take this opportunity on behalf of the party to kneel down before my dad – please forgive us. Let us come together to build this country.”
Stop Bleaching
This, however, did not move Mr. Rawlings who would not even look in her direction.
When he took the microphone, he hilariously said “Hmm! Hmm! But she is getting too fair. Let us stop this kind of things. The use of these kinds of soaps (bleaching soaps) is not good. She said she is my daughter so allow me to say it. Let it serve as a lesson. Tomorrow too come and stand here and say that I am your father. Anita! Anita!”
The former President did not also end there, as somewhere in between his address, he went back to the topic, throwing the crowd into laughter and jeers.
Mr. Rawlings demanded some answers from Anita when he touched on the NDC’s treatment of Martin Amidu and his subsequent appointment as the Special Prosecutor by the NPP government.
“Anita what does that make of us? Anita, I am calling your name, won’t you mind me?” Anita says I am her father,” the former President teased.
Crook Comment
Former President Rawlings recently descended heavily on Ms Desooso, calling her a ‘crook’ in a short video which went viral.
Speaking Twi interspersed with English in the video, which appears to have been recorded recently at a social gathering at an unidentified location, the former President said “that Anita, she is a crook! She was lucky I didn’t speak about her that day during the June 4th celebration.”
Amid spontaneous laughter from the gathering, he said that “what she did was pre-planned. How can a woman go on her kneels pleading for forgiveness for herself and her party?”
“You know instead of accepting me graciously and then letting it go, you are so mean that you even go and talk about…what do we call it…her bleaching, bleached face. No…no…no, maybe, sometimes I say the inappropriate things. I should have said it there and then,” Mr Rawlings, who was in the company of his wife, former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, fired.
By William Yaw Owusu