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Eight leading members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) who served under former President Jerry John Rawlings, and recently defended him as the founder of the party, have come under attack from other party supporters. They are Kwamena Ahwoi, Sherry Aryeetey, E. T. Mensah, Alhaji Mahama Iddrissu, Kofi Totobi Quakyi, P. V Obeng, Kwame Peprah and Nana Ato Dadzie. The eight, some of whom are holding ministerial positions and other sensitive posts in government, have been accused of open display of hypocrisy because some of them had previously attacked Mr. Rawlings in the events leading to the NDC congress. The eight leading NDC members had issued a signed statement in which they challenged claims by Dr. Obed Asamoah, a returnee NDC member, that Mr. Rawlings was not the founder of the ruling party. Prof Ahwoi later granted an interview to Radio Gold in which he told the NDC prodigal son, Dr. Asamoah, that if he was coming back to push out Jerry John Rawlings, then he had got it wrong, asking, �Does he think that he is returning to an NDC without a Rawlings?� insisting that �Rawlings is still a part of the NDC.� But Operations Director of the Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (FONKAR), a splinter group in the ruling party, Ernest Owusu Bempah, thinks the spontaneous reaction of the eight to Dr. Asamoah�s vituperation, was a mere window-dressing and a scam clothed in empathy. �We were in this country when Betty Mould-Iddrisu, the wife of Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu, came out in the heat of the NDC presidential primaries that we don�t have only one founder in the NDC,� he told DAILY GUIDE and asked rhetorically, �So where was Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu at the time his wife came out to say those things? Is it that he was asleep and just woke up from his slumber?� Owusu Bempah also recalled how E.T Mensah virtually assailed Mr. Rawlings by asking him to �come and take his share from the NDC� because his wife Nana Konadu was contesting incumbent President Atta Mills for the flagbearership position of the party. �They have come out to condemn Obed Asamoah without mentioning Asiedu-Nketia�s involvement and endorsement of Obed Asamoah�s statement and actions. This smacks of hypocrisy and lacking sincerity,� he insisted, saying, �These same people endorsed similar statements in the past including E.T. Mensah himself.� He did not understand why these same people who allowed these insults to fester for a long time would now turn feigning their belief in Mr. Rawlings, saying, �Their reaction is a scam clothed in empathy.� However, Mr. Ahwoi and his colleagues believe Obed�s claims were provocative and ill-timed, given the fact that his DFP merger request had not even been given approval by the functional executive committee. Before he even went out there to make those comments, they think Obed should have consulted some of them to find out what went into maintaining the cohesion of the party for all these years. �Many people are in the NDC because of Mr. Rawlings and so it would not be proper for Dr. Asamoah to utter such remarks, especially at this time in the history of the party. The statement is undermining the solidity of the party,� Mr. Ahwoi noted. He debunked the legality on which Dr. Asamoah appeared to be hinging his position, explaining that Mr. Rawlings chaired the meetings in the Castle preceding the formation of the NDC and that on some occasions when he could not do so, he delegated the responsibility to the late Justice D.F. Annan or Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu.