There is no end in sight to the leadership crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The Chairman of the Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, and the embattled former National Chairman, Senator Modu Sheriff, have shifted the supremacy battle to the court. Assistant Editor GBADE OGUNWALE writes on the effects of the protracted crisis on the opposition party.
The festering leadership crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has polarised the party. Senator Ahmed Makarfi and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. Makarfi and Sheriff have not reached compromise.
The two gentlemen are a pole apart in deeds and actions. Makarfi is soft natured, soft spoken with an unmistakable stamp of authority.
The authority oozes from the trust his voice conveys to his audience. The supple-looking former Kaduna State Governor can be firm, if he had to. He’s urbane and wears a modest outlook wherever he finds himself. On the other hand, the brusque ex Borno State governor is direct, prickly and usually unapologetic. Sheriff doesn’t thrive much with euphemism making his point. Sheriff proved this in a recent verbal exchange with Makarfi in the course of the ongoing quake in the party.
Makarfi had fired the first salvo when he accused Sheriff of been hired by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to destroy the PDP. But, Sheriff did not make his response to Makarfi’s accusation in just one sentence. He said it was indeed, the ex Kaduna governor and one of his team mates, Senator Ben Obi were in cahoots with an unnamed APC chieftain.
He said: “If there are people in the PDP working for the APC, it’s Makarfi and Obi. Makarfi should not force me to reveal details that I should not reveal under normal circumstances. Makarfi and Obi have gone to visit this APC chieftain in his house twice and this particular individual is still in the APC.
It would have been better if the man had left the APC to join the PDP. They are reserving the 2019 presidential ticket of the PDP for this individual who has been funding their activities. He continues, “If Makarfi continues to attack my person, I will be forced to reveal further details of their alliance. He’s not done. “Everybody in Nigeria knows this particular APC chieftain who wants to contest for president in 2019 on the platform of the PDP. So Makarfi should just shut up”.
Since then, the accusations by the Makarfi camp, wrapping Sheriff up as a hireling of the APC, got simmered. The Abuja national secretariat of the party has been under lock and key for the past two weeks in the aftermath of attacks and counter-attacks by hirelings of the two factions. It was a fierce battle by the two camps to take over the secretariat building.
Makarfi accused Sheriff of bringing in ECOMOG, a byword used to depict local political thugs associated with the latter. Sheriff retorted that Makarfi unleashed “Fulani herdsmen” on Prof. Wale Oladipo and Alhaji Adewole Adeyanju, National Secretary and National Auditor respectively.
According to him, the mob was sponsored to cause bodily harm to the two party chiefs were at the secretariat to resume duties for the day. After a great deal of feather ruffling, the two gentlemen were allowed to leave the secretariat building with their bones and limbs intact. The political animosity between the two combatants was ignited at the party’s May 21 botched convention.
The governors arrived the Port Harcourt venue of the convention only to tell Sheriff to back down as the National Chairman. His tenure, they said, had expired. To fill the vacuum, they hurriedly clobbered a Caretaker Committee, with Makarfi as chairman.
Sheriff has been vehement in denouncing the committee, describing it as illegal at every given opportunity. The Makarfi committee has also been similarly tempered, particularly when arguments centred around where the leadership authority lies. Litigations started cascading over one another, as the two sides appeared to have made the courtrooms pilgrimage grounds. At the last count, such cases still pending before the various courts exceed the count of the fingers on one hand.
The next few days will certainly see the loser rushing to perfect appeal papers with retained attorneys for onward transmission to the appellate court. It’s a political war of attrition that the combatants themselves must have envisaged. Sounding a bit reflective at one of his many media outings last week, Sheriff had offered to step down, if the court so ruled. But he did not specify whether he meant the court of first instance, the appellate court, or the apex court that has the final say.
How long Sheriff could drag the matter remains a subject of conjecture for now. In courting Sheriff, the PDP governors must have underestimated the extent of the former Borno governor’s enormous capacity for the dogfight. Narrating how he was dragged into the chairmanship race, Sheriff said he never contemplated becoming the party’s chair.
He was backing the aspiration of a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Alhaji Mohammed Abba Gana, who was one of the five contestants for the position at the time. Said he: “I was backing Abba Gana to become PDP chairman because I see him as my brother from the same Borno State as me. But, the governors, four of them, came to me to say that they wanted me to be the chairman. I told them that it would be morally wrong for me to accept the offer when I was already supporting one of the aspirants. I was already holding meetings with Abba Gana and I had assured him of my full support. But the governors insisted that I should come forward and take the job”.
On why the two factions have failed to heed a call by the police for a peaceful resolution through dialogue, Sheriff said he was waiting for Makarfi to submit the list of his dialogue team to him. “I am waiting for Makarfi to formally submit the names on his list to me because I am the national chairman”, he said. Although the Makarfi camp has continued to express its willingness to dialogue with Sheriff, there are no visible signs to indicate that either side is predisposed to meeting across the conference.
The two sides have returned to court, following the verdict of the High Court in Port-Harcourt that the Caretaker Committee was properly set up. As the waiting game is on, the two sides have gone a great length trying to outwit the other through claims and counter claims, actions and counteractions. It started with the Makarfi committee conducting a primary to pick a candidate for the party’s Edo state governorship election coming up in September. A candidate emerged in the person of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
A few days after, Sheriff also set up his own team to conduct a parallel primary election to elect a different candidate. Prior to that, Sheriff had announced the suspension of the executive committee of the Edo state chapter on the strength of “various petitions” against the leadership of the chapter.
But, the Makarfi camp had repudiated the said suspension order, insisting that Sheriff didn’t have the powers to take such a step and urged stakeholders in the chapter to ignore him. While the tango was going on, a court in the Federal Capital Territory voided the amendment to a section of the party’s constitution that facilitated the appointment of Sheriff as the national chairman. The Makarfi Committee has advised Sheriff to retrace his steps, based on the judgment. But, the Sheriff camp has said that the court did not sack the embattled chairman and that the judgement of was being misinterpreted. The court, presided over by Justice Valentine Ashi, nullified the 2014 PDP constitution amendment upon which Sheriff was appointed the PDP chairman.
The court described the amendment as illegal and a violation of the Electoral Act. The Secretary of the Ahmed Makarfi -led caretaker committee, Senator Ben Obi, in an interview yesterday described the judgement as a welcome development. Said he, “We expect more positive court rulings in the days ahead in favour of our party. It is time for them to face the truth and retrace their steps”.
He called on Sheriff and his supporters to stop their hard line posture and cooperate with the caretaker committee to move the party forward. “We believe that truth must be upheld; we want all hands to be on deck to chart the way forward”, Obi added. Repudiating the judgment, the National Secretary of the Sheriff faction, Prof. Adewale Oladipo said in a statement yesterday that “this is completely false and a clear misrepresentation of the ruling of the court as it never gave any ruling ousting the national chairman.
The statement said, “Our attention has been drawn to reports circulating in the media that a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court has ousted the National Chairman of the PDP, Sen. Ali-Modu Sheriff. “For the avoidance of doubt, the court only heard and delivered judgment on a matter concerning certain amendments in the PDP constitution, which has nothing to do with the election of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the national chairman or even that of his predecessor, Alhaji Adamu Muazu.
“Senator Ali Modu Sheriff was duly elected as the national chairman of the PDP. He still holds office as the national chairman and has not been removed by any court. We, therefore, urge those misleading the media and the unsuspecting public to desist from such. The media is also urged to always cross-check their facts before going to press”. So for the PDP, it’s one week, one trouble.
