Politics

End of the road for Sherriff

Published

8 years ago

July 5, 2016

Olu Emmanuel

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Court sets PDP free from hostage

The controversial leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, former Governor of Borno State, who several PDP stakeholders conceived to be on assignment for the All Progressives Congress (APC), has been brought to a seeming terminal halt by the court.

Invariably, the PDP would be having a relative sigh of relief from leadership crisis in the party. More importantly, the confusion and political devastation Sheriff had set out to cause in the Edo PDP towards the September 10, 2016, governorship election has also been thwarted. Thus, Sheriff has been politically castrated from emasculating the political machine of the PDP in power contest across the country.

A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State had in a judgement last Monday, July 4, 2016, upheld PDP’s resolution at its National Convention on May 21, 2016, in Port Harcourt, ousting Senator Ali Modu Sheriff from national Chairman of the party while the party constituted a national caretaker board to act as interim executive arm of the PDP.

The Court had on May 24, 2016, granted an interim injunction restraining Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, and Professor Adewale Oladipo from parading themselves as national officers of the party, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice brought before it by the PDP.

The court further granted a restraining order on any member of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP who was removed from office by the PDP’s national convention from receiving nominations and or submitting names to INEC as officers or candidates of the PDP in whatever capacity, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice brought by the party.

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More so, the Court also restrained that Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from according or continuing to accord any recognition to Sheriff and Oladipo or any or all members of the NWC as officers or organs of the PDP pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.

Sheriff had challenged the decision of the party elders to remove, contesting that he has four years to spend in office and that only a national convention can remove him from office before time when necessary.

The court’s judgment on Monday, however, inferred that Senator Ahmed Makarfi, a former Governor of Kaduna State, has become recognized as the legal interim leader of the PDP.

Accordingly, the Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee now has the mandate of the PDP to be recognized by the INEC in all matters pertaining to the conduct of primary elections for political offices and the submission of the PDP list of candidates for any elections to be conducted by the Commission.

The court judgment is widely perceived to have set the PDP free political bondage Sheriff had plotted to perpetuate in order to frustrate the party in subsequent elections.