PDP leadership crisis: Sheriff gives condition for peace

The embattled factional chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff has said the constituted caretaker committee was an aberration to the party’s constitution. Speaking while receiving a delegation of PDP supporters from 17 local government areas in Abia state who paid him a solidarity visit in Abuja on Monday, July 18, he said the Ahmed Makarfi led caretaker committee should be dissolved as a condition for reconciliation, The Nation reports. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Ali Modu Sheriff asked the Makarfi led caretaker to resign According to him, if the Makarfi caretaker committee resigns, he will ask the members of his National Working Committee (NWC) whose tenure will expire in 2018, including himself to resign. Governor Mimiko Sheriff said that was the demand he made during a meeting with Makarfi and Governors Darius Ishaku of Taraba state and Ibrahim Dankwabo of Gombe state. The embattled factional chairman denied claims that he was responsible for the crisis rocking the party, saying it was being fueled by some persons who regard the PDP as their personal property. He said there will be no room for them to operate as long as he remained chairman, vowing to resist them. “People are very interested in our party and how the crisis will be settled. Before the Port Harcourt convention which was aborted by a court order,” he said. 

 However, Sheriff wants the convention to hold in Abuja. “In that convention, I will give away my mandate that does not expire until 2018 and I remain the national chairman of this party until 2018,” Sheriff added. He asked to be allowed to nominate 10 members into the convention committee, with Makarfi also nominating 10 members. Addressing Sheriff, the leader of the Abia delegation, Chidi Nwosu asked him to look into the flawed congresses in Abia with the view to correcting the anomalies. 

 He noted that the congresses were conducted by a few powerful men who sat in their rooms and hotel accommodations where they picked the delegates. After its failed May 21 national convention in Port Harcourt, the PDP has been divided into factions following the removal of Sheriff as chairman and the constitution of a caretaker committee led by Makarfi. While Makarfi has the back­ing of PDP governors, Board of Trustees (BoT), National As­sembly caucus, the state chair­men and stakeholders of PDP, Sheriff is enjoying the support of some lawmakers, some for­mer governors, some sacked National Working Commit­tee (NWC), members and also some stakeholders of the par­ty. Sheriff has refused to step down, insisting he remains the chairman of the party, adding that the caretaker committee put in place by the national convention is illegal.