Politics

PDP crisis: Sheriff dares Jonathan

Published

7 years ago

March 3, 2017

Olu Emmanuel

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Vows to stop Makarfi from registering a new party

The hope of sustainable resolution of the crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is becoming frustrated by the insistence of Senator Ali Modu Sherriff who insists that he will not step down as PDP national chairman, National Daily reports. Sherriff’s resolve was made contrary to the appeal by former President Goodluck Jonathan to both Sherriff and Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Chairman of the PDP National Caretaker Committee to step down from their respective offices in the party in order to pave way for reconciliation of the crisis in the PDP.

PDP Governors Forum led by Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State had gone to former President Jonathan to appeal to him to intervene on the crisis ravaging the party. Jonathan had given the advice as a pre-condition for dialogue among the various stakeholders towards consensus building on the resolution of the impasse.

Sherriff had accepted the intervention of Jonathan but objected to the pre-condition for reconciliation. Jonathan had advised that both party leaders should step, then, the PDP governors should nominate a national chairman to lead the party to the next national convention. Sherriff’s unyielding resolve, National Daily gathered, did not go down well with the former President. There were arrangements, however, for further political diplomacy and overtures to reach a consensus on the parameters for resolving the PDP crisis.

Former President Jonathan established Sherriff’s political authority in the PDP during his tenure. The former President was perceived to have made Sherriff his close associates, especially, during the period he was contending with the Boko Haram terrorism in the North East. Sherriff was in the former President’s entourage to Chad and Niger where Jonathan went to hold meeting with the Presidents of both neighbouring countries over the Boko Haram conflicts.

The PDP Governors Forum, thereafter, consolidated Sherriff’s stronghold in the PDP when they appointed him chairman of the party during the contentious period of the party’s leadership after the controversial exit of the former national chairman, Adamu Mua’zu, particularly, the court order that abruptly compelled Uche Secondus to vacate office as acting national chairman with urgency.

Currently, the judgment of the court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, penultimate week, legally made Sherriff the PDP national chairman. That judgement is still being appealed at the Supreme Court but PDP Governors have declared their preference for political solution to the leadership conflicts in the party.

Before the PDP Governors met with Jonathan, Modu Sherriff had earlier visited the former President. The visit generated negative interpretations that the former President has endorsed Sherriff, but this was later refuted by Jonathan who remark4ed that other PDP stakeholders can still visit him.

Bernard Mikko, publicity secretary of Sherriff’s PDP faction, had in a statement said that resignation from office never came up in the meeting Sherriff had with Jonathan. “The general public, PDP members and the media are hereby informed that the issue of the National Chairman’s resignation as the political solution has never been discussed nor was it put up for discussion with the former President and other stakeholders,” Mikko had declared.

He maintained, in paraphrase: “…shortly before the Court of Appeal judgement of 17th February, 2017, all parties and stakeholders agreed that on the receipt of the Court of Appeal judgement, whichever way it goes; members will be prevailed upon and urged to support the judgement and orders of the Court of Appeal and rally round the successful party to conduct, as soon as possible, a national unity convention for the election of officers; the modalities of which shall be worked out by all stakeholders of the party.”

Furthermore, Sherriff also vowed to stop Makarfi from registering a new political party carved out of the PDP. Bashir Maidugu, Legal Adviser to Sherriff, was gathered to have boasted that “the alleged moves by Ahmed Makarfi to form an ‘Advanced PDP’ under INEC will be met with strong resistance.” The factional leaders were said to have declared that they were prepared to challenge the alleged planned registration of ‘Advanced PDP’ by Ahmed Makarfi in the court of law.

“We are recognised legally by the Court of Appeal and all law abiding citizens should abide by the decision of the court. Anything contrary to this is contemptuous,” Maidugu was cited to have said. He had argued that PDP was a legally registered and recognised political party which administered the affairs of the nation for 16 consecutive years, adding that duplicating its name in whatever guise will fail. He had insisted that any move by any person or group to use the party’s name either at INEC or at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) ‎ would be resisted.