By SUNDAY ODIBASHI
THE embattled National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sheriff (SAS), has drawn a clear battle line with the PDP in the party’s efforts to reinvigorate its structures and political machine for the 2019 General Elections. Sheriff, National Daily gathered, is waging a fervent war to forestall the repositioning of the PDP, an effort, the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has been playing crucial roles, towards nominating a credible and marketable candidate for party in the 2019 presidential election, who may not be a PDP member.
National Daily inquiry unveiled that the bone of contention is a purported plan to reposition the PDP for a particular candidate, who is still a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) negotiating PDP’s presidential ticket as condition to decamp to the party for the 2019 elections.
The prospective candidate was said to be the reason Sheriff was removed as PDP national chairman in Port Harcourt, which precipitated the current crisis in the party.
Party sources revealed that the PDP has been considering a stout political leader in the APC, (name withheld), who is alleged to be a close political ally of Ekweremadu, for its presidential ticket in 2019. Sources in the PDP revealed that PDP Governors were working in collaboration with Ekweremadu on the alleged project. It was gathered that the Governors had, during arrangements for the May 21 PDP National Convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, purportedly consulted the Deputy Senate President for update on the arrangement for the prospective presidential candidate but were told that the political actor said he cannot join the PDP so long that Sheriff remains the national chairman. The prospective candidate was said to have expressed the fear that Sheriff is also interested in the presidential race and will hijack the PDP for his personal agenda.
At that point, the PDP Governors were alleged to have decided to immediately sacrifice Sheriff by ousting him from the leadership of the party at the Port Harcourt convention.
Ekweremadu and some other PDP leaders have been leading a reformist team to reinvent and entrench openness, competitiveness, wider participation and other known norms of internal democracy, in the party since the party lost power in 2015.
The rebuilding team initiated the appointment of the transitory Committee Caretaker headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, former Governor of Kaduna State, in replacement of the dissolved National Working Committee (NWC) headed by Sheriff.
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Subsequently, the reformist group, leading a renaissance movement in the PDP, insist on institutionalizing basic principles of democratic civilization that guarantee equity, liberty and justice, then, went further to negotiate power sharing and zoning which allocated the national chairman to the South and the president to the North. Markafi had on the inauguration of the National Convention Committee affirmed that the PDP has zoned the president to the North and it doesn’t make sense to retain the national chairman in the North also.
This time, those trying to rebuild the PDP overtly avoided micro geo-political entities in their zoning agreements to avoid the intractable conflicts the party encountered in the past that led to its fall and defeat by the APC.
The new arrangements, however, are contrary to Sheriff’s agenda, more so, that Sheriff was excluded from those decisions.
One of the PDP leaders in the reformist group, Awwal Tukur, had declared that the party chairman is being zoned to the south and not to a particular micro geo-political zone. He maintained that any qualified candidate from the South West, South-South and South East, can freely contest for the office. He insisted that PDP leaders must also ensure that the same pattern prevail in the nomination of the party’s presidential candidate from the North in 2019, that aspirants from the North East, North West and North Central should also contest for the ticket. He admonished that anything to the contrary, will destroy the party beyond redemption.
Apparently, the reformists’ agenda is beginning overtaken whatever plan to reserve the presidential ticket for any particular aspirant. The PDP is, accordingly, being forced into deep culture of horse trade and consensus building but Sheriff is consistently waging a strong battle against the transformative regime in the party, deploying the enormous wealth at his behest to scuttle virtually every process. There are indications that continuous exclusion of Sheriff from the rebuilding decisions will exacerbate the crisis in the party.
Invariably, several PDP leaders consider Sheriff a gross political liability to the party and working for the APC.
The configuration of the internal battle in the PDP so far, indicates that Sheriff is not leaving anything to chance. In the suit he filed to stop the August 17 National Convention in Port Harcourt, Sheriff unilaterally engaged the services of the legal counsels who stood in both for himself and the PDP at the Federal High Court.
How Sheriff triggers confusion in legal proceedings.
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The leadership tussle in the PDP is currently before the Court of Appeal but Sheriff consistently approaches the court to retain his office and scuttle whatever the PDP is doing through the Markafi-led Caretaker Committee. This has led to a form of judicial anarchy in the PDP crisis.
In the suit seeking to stop PDP National Convention in Port Harcourt on August 17, at the Federal High Court, Abuja, Sheriff Faction engaged the services of Olagoke Fakunle, SAN, to defend the PDP in their own case against the party. At the same time Niyi Akintola, SAN, was engaged to stand in for Sheriff and his group in the same suit.
Ferdinand Obi, SAN, who stood in for the PDP at the instance of the Caretaker Committee led by Markafi was disqualified from the proceedings by the presiding judge, Justice Okon Abang, who, thereafter, delivered judgment in favour of Sheriff.
Olagoke Fakunle, SAN, had stated before Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court that he was mandated by the “real PDP leadership” to appear in the matter.
But Ferdinand Obi explained that the Port Harcourt Division of the Federal High Court had on July 4, sacked Sheriff from office as PDP chairman. Obi, therefore, contended that it was ethically wrong for the plaintiffs, led by Sheriff, to contract Fakunle to represent the PDP which they also sued as the Second respondent before the court.
Obi had highlighted that the judgment of Justice A. M. Liman of the High Court, Port Harcourt, in suit No. FHC/PH/CS/524/2016, settled the issue of who should receive legal processes or engage a lawyer on behalf of the PDP. He had stated that that processes for the PDP in this matter was signed by one Bashir Maidugu, who was the erstwhile Deputy National Legal Adviser of the party and the 5th plaintiff in this action.
Fakunle, SAN, on the other divide, pleaded the court not only to discountenance Obi’s arguments but also order him to immediately withdraw his appearance for the PDP. “My lord, it is not in contention that PDP briefed us and we accordingly filed processes on its behalf in this matter… I urge the court to hold that we are counsel for the PDP and that my learned brother should cease from appearing in this matter forthwith,” he had said, in part.
Chief Niyi Akintola, SAN, had pleaded the court to grant an injunction stopping the PDP from proceeding with the August 17 National Convention in Port Harcourt, pending the determination of the substantive suit. “What we are asking for is an injunction… This matter is very crucial. They want to hold a convention which we are seeking to stop,” Akintola was gathered to have pleaded, in part.
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Alhassan Umar, Counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), [ND1] 1st defendant, had informed the court that the plaintiffs were yet to serve the Commission with all the relevant processes.
However, Justice Abang went ahead with his judgment after disqualifying Obi as counsel to the PDP.
In a seeming ego contest, Justice Okon Abang was said to have reviewed that the Lagos division of the high court had on May 12, made an order restraining PDP from conducting any election into offices of its National Chairman, Secretary and Auditor, occupied by 1st, 2nd and 3rd plaintiffs led by Sheriff. He had added that the court also barred INEC from monitoring or recognising candidates that emerge from any such election. “That order is still subsisting and has not been vacated. Yet again, on May 20, the court made another order, directing INEC and PDP to maintain status quo on issue relating to position of the plaintiffs, pending determination of the suit before it. Later in the same month, PDP held a convention that removed these plaintiffs and set up a Caretaker Committee that led to the emergence of Markafi who briefed you (Obi) to appear in this matter,” the judge had remarked.
Obi was gathered to have noted that, “…The Chief Judge of this court, on July 8, issued a circular to all the judges handling PDP leadership tussle cases to stop further action on the matters pending the outcome of the appeals before the Court of Appeal.” Justice Abang was said to have countered that the CJ later issued another circular on July 23, cancelling the previous one dated July 8.
Justice Abang proceeded to deliver judgment that every action the Caretaker Committee has taken since it emerged through a convention the party purportedly held in Port Harcourt on May 21, amounted to nullity. “Parties have an uncompromising duty to obey court order until it is set aside. The Lagos Division made orders on May 12 and 20, forbidding the PDP from removing the Sheriff-led Caretaker Committee. That order is still subsisting. Having regard to the order of the court, PDP had no lawful authority to hold the convention that led to the emergence of the Markafi-led Committee. “The convention was unlawfully held and the Caretaker Committee was unlawfully and illegally appointed and could not take any legal decision for the PDP in view of the subsisting order of the Lagos Division of this court,” he was cited to have declared inter alia. Justice Abang had maintained: “I hold that the Port Harcourt division of this court cannot make an order to neutralise the potency of the Lagos Division of this court dated 12 and 20 May.“
Judgment of the High Court in Port Harcourt
Justice Mohammed Liman of a Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, had in his judgment, indicated that the PDP did not violate any court order in constituting a National Caretaker Committee to manage the party in the interim before the election of substantive leaders of the party.
Justice Liman, in the judgement, highlighted that Sheriff, in accordance with the PDP constitution, convened the Port Harcourt national convention with other national officers of the party, appointed a national convention organising committee and subsequently submitted himself for screening to re-contest his position at the convention. The judge remarked that Sheriff later turned round to single-handedly postpone the convention after he had been disqualified from contesting for the national chairmanship seat of the party.
Liman was of the view that the chairman of the party didn’t have powers to unilaterally postpone the convention, since there was a caveat in the party’s constitution that he was to preside over the national convention with other national officers of the party.
“The first defendant from undisputable evidence participated from the very initial stage of summoning the convention from the level of national executive council, appointed a national convention organising committee, he filed to contest, was screened but disqualified…” Justice Liman had narrated; arguing that, it is logical to assume that Sheriff was prevented from participating in the convention; adding that, “It will also not come from him that the convention was not properly convened.”
“The first defendant submitted himself for screening, purchased the form for the screening. The screening was widely reported in the media,” the judge noted.
Justice Liman had noted that Sheriff, who was national chairman at the time, did not attend the convention but went ahead to postpone the exercise when delegates from all parts of the country were already at the venue. The judge was said to have stated that the unilateral act of Sheriff violated the constitution of the party; that if Sheriff had attended the convention and proposed postponement of the exercise but it was rejected, he would have been vindicated.
“The national chairman should have attended the convention and propose postponement. He would have been vindicated even if they rejected it” the judge had declared.
He held that the convention acted right in the dissolution of the Sheriff led executive and composition of a Caretaker Committee since it is the controlling authority of the party.
“The national convention is the controlling authority of the party, it shall exercise authority to elect and remove the national officers of the party and to appoint such committees it deemed necessary and assign to them such powers it may deem fit. ”It is obvious that the dissolution of the national executive committee and the working committee was within the ambits of the article of the party,” Justice Liman had declared.