Sheriff group kicks as PDP BoT endorses Makarfi

The ousted National Chairman of the Peoples
Democratic Party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has
rejected Tuesday’s handover of the party
secretariat to the Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker
Committee.

PDP members, who are supporters of the
former Borno State governor, made this
position known in Abuja, on Tuesday.

Sheriff and his supporters were reacting to the
handover of the party secretariat to the
caretaker committee by the party’s Board of
Trustees earlier in the day.

A prominent member of the Sheriff-led group
and former National Secretary of the PDP, Prof.
Wale Oladipo, in a telephone interview with The
Smart360news, dismissed the handover ceremony,
describing it as illegal.

Oladipo described the handover of the
secretariat by the party’s BoT to the caretaker
panel as a breach of pending court cases.
He said, “They know that what they did this
morning was an illegality. It is this kind of
impunity that brought us to where we are today.

“They know that there are subsisting court
orders forbidding them from doing that. So, why
should they do that?

“They are elders, who are supposed to be the
conscience of the party. The conscience of the
party must be composed of people with
conscience, people who will respect the rule of
law. I will not say more than this for now.”

Sheriff’s Special Adviser on Media, Mr. Inuwa
Bwala, in a statement he signed on Tuesday on
behalf of his boss, who was said to have
travelled out of the country, dismissed the
handover ceremony.

The statement stated, “Our attention has been
drawn to the activities at the National
secretariat of the PDP to the effect that some
individuals masquerading as leaders have
handed over to Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi
under a contraption called ‘caretaker
committee’.

“We state as a matter of fact that going by
proceedings still pending in the courts to the
effect that Senator Ali Sheriff remains the
National Chairman, whatever transpired was
null, void and of no effect whatsoever.

“Sheriff has neither mandated anybody nor was
his authority obtained by Uche Secondus, who
has been parading himself as acting on behalf of
the National Chairman.”

According to the statement, while his boss and
his supporters await judicial pronouncements on
pending court cases, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff
remains the National Chairman of the party.

“We allowed the charade to go on at the
secretariat without any form of challenge in
strict obedience to careful pronouncement on
the matter, but we must also state that there is
no gathering of groups or individuals, however
powerful, such groups or individuals may be,
that can be said to take precedence over the
law,” the statement added.

Earlier in the day, Secondus formally handed the
reins of authority to the Makarfi-led caretaker
committee after which the Chairman of the
party’s BoT, Senator Walid Jibrin, also handed
over the party’s assets and liabilities to the
committee.

At the event, Secondus declared that the party
was strong and was working towards ensuring a
successful national convention, which would
produce leaders, who in turn, would lead the
party to victory in 2019.

He said, the “PDP must buckle up and be strong
to take power and to provide leadership for this
country. Therefore, on behalf of the former
National Working Committee, we are here to
make a formal handover to the new caretaker
committee, who will midwife the convention.
And we want to assure you that all politics is
local.

“We have to restate here, that all politics are
local. Our leaders must go back to the grass
roots. It is not enough to be in Abuja. It is not
enough to say I am strong in Abuja. It is not
enough to say I am a former this, I am a former
that. You must be able to prove your worth in
local politics and popularity.’’

Jibrin said the BoT never took over the party,
stating that what it did was to hold in trust the
assets and liabilities of the party.

Makarfi however apologised to members of the
PDP, who he said might be offended by the
decision taken by the party.

“We appeal to them to embrace dialogue and
come and join us to rebuild the party,” he
added.

Meanwhile, the PDP has prayed for President
Muhammadu Buhari’s quick recovery as he
seeks medical attention abroad.

The party blamed the rising cases of mass
killings on the mismanagement of the nation’s
affairs.

The Deputy President of the Senate, Ike
Ekweremadu, who led the prayer session, noted
that in times like this, Nigerians, irrespective of
religious or party affiliation, should come
together to pray for the nation and its leaders.

Ekweremadu said, “Let me quickly remind all of
us that our President is presently not feeling
well and has been flown abroad for treatment.
So, I will like to invite you to rise, let us say a
minute of prayer for his quick recovery.”

The Deputy Senate President led other party
members to render prayers for the quick
recovery of the President, the protection of the
first family, the leaders and Nigeria as a whole.

Ekweremadu noted that the new spirit of
reconciliation in the PDP would put the party on
the path to returning to power in 2019.

He added, “Our dear party men and women, we
must apologise to certain institutions and
aspects of our national life. And to our currency,
we are worried and we are sorry about the
dwindling fortune of our currency.

“Our economy, by the time we left in 2015, was
the strongest in Africa. Today, we sympathise
with that economy but we want to assure our
economy that you will be strong again, not only
in Africa, but in the whole world.

“We want to tell all of our people who are losing
their employment in banks, construction
companies that by the time PDP returns to
power in 2019, the story will change.’’

He said the party would ensure that two
members of the House of Representatives, who
left the PDP to join the All Progressives
Congress, lose their seats so that committed
members would take their place.

The Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and
Ondo State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko, said,

“These are definitely happy times for the PDP.

But paradoxically, these are unhappy times for
the nation. In all my time in this country as an
adolescent and as a politically active adult, which
is a few years now, dying has never been this
cheap in this country.

“Beheading, dying have never come to the
forefront of national discuss. It seems that
every day, you open the newspapers, you see
people dying here; beheaded there and people
carting them away to secret graves.

“But the mismanagement of the affairs of this
country is one of the renewed strengths of the
centrifugal forces.”