Who Has Bewitched PDP ? - Fani-Kayode Cries Out

Femi Fani-Kayode has written a powerful piece on the emergence of Ali Modu Sheriff as Acting Chairman of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

On the 16th of February 2016, the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) adopted Senator Ali Modu Sheriff (aka SARS), a two-time ANPP Governor of Borno state, a former ANPP senator, the former Chairman of the All Peoples Congress (APC) Board of Trustees and the indisputable founder of Boko Haram as its Acting National Chairman. Modu-Sheriff is also the erstwhile godfather and sponsor of Governor Shettima Ali, the present APC Governor of Borno state (until they fell out), He is a man that has a very deep and profound relationship and association with Idris Deby, the President of Chad and he is a man whose son is married to the daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Many have argued that his allegiance is more to the Republic of Chad than it is to Nigeria, that he is an agent of the Chadian intelligence agencies and that he is a Chadian citizen who often flaunts his Chadian passport. I cannot confirm the veracity of these assertions but one thing that I know is that most of Modu Sheriff's funding and stupendous wealth emanates primarily from the Republic of Chad and that that country is as much a home to him as is Nigeria. Yet it is not his connection with Chad that give me cause for concern. Rather it is his role in the establishment of Boko Haram.

The truth is that appointing him as our Acting National Chairman is like appointing Jack the Ripper as the leader of the Conservative party in Victorian England. Kudos must go to the elders in the PDP Board of Trustees, a number of State Party Chairmen and a number of key individuals in the PDP Ministers Forum for taking a courageous and noble stand by rejecting and resisting the imposition of this abominable monstrosity. What Ali Modu Sheriff stands for and represents is utterly repugnant to every fiber of my being. Yet I have no objection to his being a member of the PDP simply because politics is a game of numbers. It is a game in which everyone, no matter how big or small, counts.

If you want your party to grow and make progress you must accept the good, the bad and the ugly. To this end when he left the APC and joined the PDP sometime back, I was one of those that gladly welcomed him