The leader of the National Democratic Congress’ Volta Regional Caucus in Parliament, Emmanuel Bedzrah says the death of former President Jerry John Rawlings is a shock to the party.

“We are shocked of the sudden death of our founder and the former President Jerry John Rawlings,” he said.

According to him, the former President was a mentor like no other, who had coached and served as a source of inspiration for a lot of people in the party, himself included.

He said, “Growing up when I was around 12 years there was this gentleman who dashed unto the political scene. Very young, naïve I didn’t know what was happening, all I was hearing was there was a coup d’ etat by a half-cast man called JJ.

“So I grew up trying as much as possible to understand his philosophy and things that he believed in. And so entering into politics one of the things I was looking up to was social justice, and Jerry was the one who has really taught me that the meaning of social justice transcends even religion so I decided to follow him and learn from him.”

He added that the former President was larger than life itself, thus putting a cost to his life would be understating who he is.

“You cannot put any cost to this loss. Some may not like not his way of doing things. He’s not a perfect man. He’s just a man that when you come close to you’ll like him,” he said.