Politics

PDP crisis: Sheriff set to step down

Published

7 years ago

February 23, 2017

Olu Emmanuel

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Facilitates reopening of PDP national secretariat

The embattled national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has assured members of the party that he is willing to leave office after the party’s national convention which is yet to be scheduled. He said he has no intention to be PDP chairman forever, adding that his mission is to rebuild the party.

“My mission is to rebuild the party and bring it back to its 1999 position. I am not here to remain as chairman forever. I will leave after the convention, Sherriff had declared. .he furtreh4r maintained: “We will conduct a credible convention and whoever wants to be PDP leader can contest in the convention.”

Sheriff made these disclosures when he received certain PDP leaders from South West geopolitical zone who paid him a visit in his office in Abuja on Wednesday.

The embattled PDP national chairman also told his guests that PDP national secretariat at Wadata Plaza, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja would re-open before Friday.

The Police had sealed up the PDP national secretariat since the party’s national convention on May 20, 2016, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The police explained that the lock up of the secretariat was to forestall breakdown of law and order because of the leadership crisis between the Sheriff Faction and Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee.

Sheriff had disclosed that he had commenced legal process that would allow PDP leaders and workers to access the secretariat to resume official activities before the week end.

“We have transmitted the necessary document to the security agencies; including the Nigerian Police and the Department of State Security Services (DSS) to reopen it,” Sherriff declared.

Sherriff, thereafter, appealed to PDP leaders to go back to their respective wards and work for the party. He further pleaded with governors to join him in rebuilding the party, acknowledging that they are leaders in their own right.

The PDP South West factional Zonal Chairman, Makanjuola Ogundipe, who led the team on the visit, said they were in Abuja to declare the zone’s support for Sherriff.

Ogundipe said the visit was also to advise Sheriff to use his victory at the court to reunite everybody in the party, irrespective of what happened earlier. “You must see yourself as father to all. Now that you have been saddled with the leadership responsibility, we want to urge you to make sure that the party is revived within 40 days,” he said.

The Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt had in its judgment on Feb. 17, 2017, upheld Sherriff PDP national chairman. The judgment compelled the PDP Board of Trustees, Governors, Caretaker Committee and other PDP stakeholders to proceed to the Supreme Court to challenge the decision of the Appellate court.