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Tag: Modu Sheriff

  • Tinubu, Buhari condole with Modu Sheriff over mother’s death

    Tinubu, Buhari condole with Modu Sheriff over mother’s death

    President Bola Tinubu has commiserated with former Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, on the passing of his mother, Hajiya Aisa.

    The President encouraged the family to find solace in the knowledge that the deceased lived a virtuous life and passed on at the ripe age of 93.

    In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, the president prayed that Allah grant the deceased Aljannah Firdausi and comfort her grieving family.

    It reads: “President Bola Tinubu commiserates with the former Governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, over the passing of his mother, Hajiya Aisa. He also condoles with the Modu Sheriff family, and urges them to take comfort in the knowledge that the deceased lived an exemplary life defined by strong virtues and transitioned at the hallowed age of 93.

    Read Also: Buhari pays tribute to Modu sheriff’s mother, Hajiya Asia

    “The President prays that Allah grant the departed Aljannah Firdausi and comfort to her family.”

    Former President Muhammadu Buhari, in his condolence message by his spokesman, Garba Shehu, praised the late matriarch for her profound influence on her children’s character and success, describing her life as ‘glorious’.

    It reads: “There is no greater loss than losing one’s mother. My condolenes to Senator Ali Sherrif and the larger Sherrif family on the passing away of their mother. May Allah accept her good deeds.”

    He also extended his condolences to Governor Babagana Zulum, the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Elkanemi, and the people of the state.

    The former president will also be represented by Shehu and two of his former ministers, Mustapha Baba Shehuri and Abubakar Aliyu, at the third day prayers tomorrow.

    The late Hajiya Aisa was buried in Maiduguri, her hometown.

  • APC as Modu-Sheriff’s leprosarium?

    A rare opportunity for APC to reclaim some moral mileage seems squandered with its new flirtation with political leper, Ali Modu-Sheriff. We had thought the cold shoulders shown the hireling from Borno a fortnight ago following reports that the national secretariat more or less locked him out in Abuja was conclusive.

    Invoking all the diplomatese possible that day, the APC leadership in Abuja had told Modu-Sheriff (aka SAS) and his hangers-on that the Federal Capital is the station of last resort. He was counseled to return to his ward in his native Borno to rejoin the party if indeed he was serious.

    Of course, no proposition could be more humiliating, given his frosty relationship with Governor Kashim Shettima, ironically his political godson of yesterday.

    Like a rain-beaten chicken, Modu-Sheriff eventually crawled back home last weekend. In exchange for accommodation, he shamelessly declared acceptance of Shettima’s leadership, terming his return a homecoming of sorts.

    But whoever opened the back-door for Modu-Sheriff in Borno has only succeeded in de-marketing APC. Branding him “a Prodigal Son back home” would amount to lending some dignity to a political reprobate who, time and again, has proved to be incorrigible. He cheapens whatever he touches and leaves a trail of infamy wherever he goes.

    As two-term governor of Borno, he has the dark distinction of incubating the evil virus that later transformed to Boko Haram. As ANPP Governor, he was known to be informant to OBJ’s PDP government.

    When he couldn’t find a foothold in then emergent APC in 2014, this political snake slithered to PDP where the leading denizens were naive enough to quickly entrust him with the party’s leadership. By the time they realized their folly, SAS had begun to literally auction off all the family silver.

    Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike, once shared a rather hilarious testimony in an interview. He recalled being called by Modu-Sheriff while the legal battle to save PDP from then factional chairman was still raging at the Supreme Court: “He was quick to tell me he was in the holy land in Mecca. And I told him there is no way God can answer your prayer with the kind of political evil you are committing in Nigeria.”

    Could this be the same character being welcomed back to APC?

     

  • Modu-Sheriff, Gov. Shettima meet first time in 8 years

    Former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),  Senator Ali Modu-Sheriff  met yesterday with Borno State Governor,  Kashim Shettima, at  Borno Government House, Maiduguri amidst thousands of supporters.

    The meeting was their first in about eight years.

    Sheriff’s meeting with Shettima yesterday finally put to rest speculations of his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party he once held sway before moving to the PDP. The duo held the meeting at the multi- purpose hall of the government house after the former governor was received by Shettima at his official residence within the same vicinity.

    Both, Modu-Sheriff and his supporters were visiting the government house for the first time since 2011 after he handed over to Gov. Shettima.

    Details of the meeting were not readily available as at the time of filing this report.

    The Nation, however  learnt that the meeting of the duo was to perfect and strengthen all grey areas of interests from the two camps  ahead of the APC’s proposed stakeholders meeting slated  to commence  today.

  • Modu Sheriff gets dizzy crisscrossing parties

    LEFT to the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), former Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, would probably have been a welcome change to the dreariness overtaking the ruling party in its stalemated indecision between going forward with a new chairman, possibly Adams Oshiomhole, and retaining the status quo with the current chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun. Senator Sheriff (Borno Central, 1999-2003), is undoubtedly the antithesis to the APC. He is not known for indecision like the APC, for he firmly and boisterously often prompts himself into new deals, political and business-wise. Middle of last week, his supporters were reported to have broadcast the news that the former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) interim chairman was set to defect to the APC. National officials of the APC, however, disclosed that Sen Sheriff was expected to resume his party membership from his ward in Borno State.

    Most of Sen Sheriff’s associates and former state chairmen when he was PDP interim chairman have defected already to the APC. It seems a question of time before he himself will find his way into the ruling party. Given the warm welcome his men received when they returned to the APC, any cold feet by party leaders to Sen Sheriff’s return appears contrived and tentative. Sooner or later, the return, the new deal so to say, will be consummated. After all, for a brief but significant period during the APC’s formative months, the Borno senator was a ranking and vocal member of the APC. But whether he is capable of developing the political principles and fundamentals that transcend his idiosyncratic passion for partisan politics remains to be seen. It may even be possible that neither his hosts in the various political parties he has sojourned in nor he himself finds it compelling to develop or be enamoured of such principles.

    The Borno State chapter of the APC is completely unenthusiastic about the return of the peregrinator. They see him in those troubled Boko Haram regions as someone who loves to foment trouble, and someone who stays with that trouble to its bitter, logical and intractable end. Pejoratively described as Alhaji Allah both for his insouciance and arrogance, and possessing a taste and manner that are at once grandiloquent and offensive, Borno APC leaders, including the governor, Kashim Shettima, have kept up an adamantine resolve to abort Sen Sheriff’s return to the APC come what may. The Borno APC leaders, rather than the party’s national officials, were probably responsible for the miscarriage of the return ceremony of the imperious former governor last Thursday. But he is used to being opposed, even viciously. Made of sterner stuff than his enemies allow him, he never sees an opposition he is not capable of overcoming with the accustomed exuberance and drama of his enigmatic presence.

    When APC leaders welcomed the return or defection of Sen Sheriff’s men, their enthusiasm was truly infectious as they gushed about the political and electoral possibilities it would open up for the ruling party. It is unlikely that the same leaders would not see Sen Sheriff’s return to the APC in even grander colours. The defections, probably accompanied by the senator’s return sometime later, are seen not only for their value in swelling the ranks of the APC but as a more potent means of depleting the ranks of the struggling and exhausted PDP. The APC has not really presented an alternative to the PDP in substance, character and ideology. Party leaders will, therefore, seize upon any action or event, no matter how flimsy and ephemeral, including encouraging self-centred defections, to affirm their illusory claim to superiority and exceptionalism.

    But more importantly, there is the nagging suspicion that party leaders are really keen on the defection of Sen Sheriff because of his potential capacity to tilt the scales in the struggle between party leaders for the heart and mind of the APC. Chief Odigie-Oyegun, the party’s embattled chairman, is struggling to diminish the president’s endorsement of the Oshiomhole candidacy, and in one fell swoop also swing support away from what seems to him to be the steady accretion of power by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu point of view in the party. Sen Sheriff and Asiwaju Tinubu have remained, since the former’s hasty exit from the young APC coalition in 2014, at daggers’ drawn. With the schism in the APC pronounced between the Odigie-Oyegun and Tinubu persuasions, the re-entry of Sen Sheriff may be expected to have some limiting effect on the latter and serve as a catalyst for the ambitions of the former.

    The former Borno State governor from 2003-20011 may have built a reputation for being a political nomad, having moved from the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to the APC, and then on to the PDP, and now planning to return to the APC. Yet he remains a dogged fighter, a suspect agent provocateur available for anybody’s use, a feisty conservative ideologue paradoxically ready to fit into any progressive construct, and a bold, wealthy and hard working political leader. His presence in Borno APC may no doubt be superfluous, but party leaders in Abuja are likely to see him fit into the role of a national game changer, partisan pugilist in the coming campaigns, and unquestionable zealot who would never shirk a fight, any fight. But whether his undeniable gifts and precarious manners are altogether suited to the contemporary needs of the APC is a different thing completely, as his trajectory in the giddy months of the PDP schisms showed very amply.

     

  • EFCC quizzes ex-PDP chair Modu Sheriff

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday quizzed a former Governor of Borno State,  Ali Modu Sheriff over the ownership of an aircraft impounded by the agency on January 16 last year.

    The aircraft was impounded at the Maiduguri International Airport.

    But the Dornier aircraft 328 linked with the former governor resumed  operations without EFCC’s clearance.

    The plane marked N805PG and 5NBMH was  allegedly linked with Skybird Air, which is being managed by one Mr. Samuel Ayodele.

    A source, who spoke in confidence, said: “The ex-Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) chairman was grilled by a team of detectives on the ownership of the aircraft. The interaction was in line with the open-ended investigation of the tenure of Sheriff as the governor of Borno State.

    “We are working on  clues that the aircraft was allegedly bought with looted funds from the state.

    “He responded to our question and denied having any ownership link with the aircraft . We will still interact with him again on Tuesday(today).

    Ayodele last year  told detectives that the aircraft was originally with the defunct IRS Airlines, which bought it with a loan of about N948million from a bank.

    The source quoted Ayodele as saying: “I bought the liability from the bank and took over the aircraft because IRS was not able to pay back the loan.

    “It is a clean business. Since I graduated from school, I have been working in the aviation sector.”

  • Modu Sheriff’s loyalists defect to APC in Edo

    Modu Sheriff’s loyalists defect to APC in Edo

    IMMEDIATE past governor of Edo State and leader of the All Progressive Congress caucus in the state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has urged Nigerians not to allow ‘armed robbers of yesterday’ return to power in the country. Oshiomhole called on Nigerians to support the anticorruption crusade of President Muhammadu Buhari, saying that corruption must be pushed back. He also cautioned Nigerians to be wary of politicians who want to use religion as a political weapon to destabilise the country.

    The former governor spoke on Friday in Benin City when thousands of supporters of Senator Alli-Modu Sheriff in the state’s Peoples Democratic Party defected to the APC.

    Those that led their supporters to defect to the APC included the lawmaker representing Ikpoba-Okha/Egor Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon Ehiozuwa Agbonnayima, former governorship aspirant of the PDP, Matthew Iduoriyikemwen and a former member of the state House of Assembly, Hon Blessing Agbebaku. Oshiomhole told the mammoth crowd it was time for the APC to install the next government in neighbouring Delta State since all the strong elements of the PDP in Edo have left the party.

    Oshiomhole said the APC must carry more brooms and extend the frontiers of progress and development to Delta State. He asserted that the PDP can no longer resurrect in Edo because “the party died in sin.” The former governor said the solution to Nigeria’s problem does not include bringing back the armed robbers of yesterday. He said the PDP destroyed the country beyond zero level and the problems could not be fixed overnight. According to him: “This process is not overnight. Our President is trying. The PDP destroyed this country beyond ground level. It cannot be fixed overnight. I have faith in my country. We must stop the looters. We must prosecute them, we must jail them.

  • Restive Modu Sheriff on the move again

    Restive Modu Sheriff on the move again

    EVEN though no one seems to know what they discussed, the meeting last Thursday at Aso Villa between Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and former controversial Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ali Modu Sheriff, has set tongues wagging and got many political heavyweights scheming for 2019 fidgeting. Another report suggested that the All Progressives Congress (APC) party chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, was also at the meeting. The the vice president’s spokesman, however, insisted he was not at the meeting. Former governor Sheriff, who lost  the leadership of the PDP to ex-governor Ahmed Makarfi by a Supreme Court judgement in July, is precisely the kind of politician a party should embrace rather than allow to roam dangerously free and feral in the thicket of politics with unpredictable consequences.

    Until either the APC leadership or the vice president’s office disclose the reason for the meeting between the two, speculations will run riot. Chief among the speculated reasons for the meeting, as a columnist with this newspaper’s Saturday edition suggested two Saturdays ago, is the need to recruit as many big political names as possible into the party in anticipation of the footwork expected to convulse the party next year during its preparation for the coming general elections. Senator Sheriff is the kind of man the aloof APC leaders believe is needed to face the fire both from within and without the party. Having alienated the coalition that brought it into power in 2015, and unable and unwilling to trigger a rapprochement within its quarrelsome ranks, the APC is in desperate need for fighters. Sen Sheriff is the archetypal fighter.

    Were Sen Sheriff to meet President Muhammadu Buhari himself, as indeed ex-president Goodluck Jonathan would have done when he led the country and faced the desperate challenges of re-election, the public would easily read meanings into the meeting. It was, therefore, expedient that the president was away when the meeting took place. Though it is still too early to say whether the president wants a second term, and indeed will not say until sometime well into next year, there is little doubt that the former Borno State governor will have tremendous and consequential impact upon the party should he and his supporters return to the party, of course, more as a cat among pigeons than a peacemaker and foot soldier.

    His state chapter of the APC does not want him, even though he still has sympathisers there. And the leaders of Borno APC, who resent his obstreperousness and brusqueness and deride him as Alhaji Allah, will have absolutely nothing to do with him. He knows, and Borno APC leaders also know, that the entry of Sen Sheriff will trigger a movement and a shuffle of truly seismic proportions in the state chapter as well as the national organ. They see his imposing mansion in Maiduguri as an execrable architectural ogre overlooking the State House, and his impudence and pride so insufferable that the Alhaji Allah nickname they gave him poetically describes him scornfully as next in rank to Allah, if not quite a god himself.

    But the APC is not unused to seismic movements, going by the epochal shift they managed to trigger between 2013 and 2014 when many politicians undertook an Mfecane movement from the ruling PDP to the then opposition APC. For now, and in football parlance, Sen Sheriff is a free agent unencumbered by any loyalty whatsoever. It is not that the rambunctious politician is discomfited by loyalties; it is just that his present state actually helps his often private causes, chief among which is to stay highly relevant, if not in the ruling party, then in the opposition party. What is inconceivable to him is to stay unattached: without a party, out of the glare of publicity, and unheralded and unsung.

    If Sen Sheriff’s meeting with the vice president was for political reasons, as indeed it seemed, then it can be safely surmised that both the APC and President Buhari are casting a sheep’s eye at 2019 with respect to the PDP’s permutations. Something is definitely afoot. Were the president to be indifferent to his own future ambition, it is doubtful whether they would be trying to cobble alliances as early as 2017. The president has not said anything, and his aides, close or distant, have not said anything either. But even in their silence can be heard the distant drums of re-election and second term, and the rat-tat-tat on the doors of political mobilisers to open up and engage.

    Nothing disquiets Sen Sheriff, nor does anything agitate his quaint political morality. Whenever he sees political opportunity, he will take it. And if that opportunity does not appear to exist, why, he will conjure it. He appreciates the politics of marriage, and is an in-law to the right people in right places. Perhaps he actually asked for the said meeting at Aso Villa. Or perhaps they called him in from the cold. Whatever the case, he is determined not to be left behind. He can’t go back to the PDP; for they will have nothing to do with him. And, given the huge image he has constructed of himself, before which he pays constant  and unbroken obeisance, it is hard to see him shuffle his bulk to a minor party. The only place left to go is therefore the APC, where he is connected both by genealogy and marriage. Except something extraordinary happens, that is where he will berth for the 2019 voyage, and give battle with the undiscriminating fecundity he is famous for. The coming 2019 manoeuvres suit his person and politics, and they also suit his image and worldview. Let his enemies within and without the APC brace up for impact, for that impact will surely come.

  • Modu Sheriff’s awkward dilemma

    Modu Sheriff’s awkward dilemma

    AFTER the Supreme Court sacked Ali Modu Sheriff as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Working Committee (NWC) chairman in July, he found himself in the most uncomfortable and unusual crossroads of his political career. Too tongue-tied to say anything coherent after the apex court pulverised his hidden ambition and gave victory to Ahmed Makarfi, his rival to the leadership of the opposition party, Senator Sheriff told the media that he would continue to watch events as they unfolded but asked his supporters to stay put in the party. About two months after the apex court unhorsed him, however, there are indications his supporters appeared poised to migrate, either in trickles or en masse, to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). It seemed that staying in the PDP and submitting themselves to the authority of the Senator Makarfi crowd had become too galling to contemplate.

    The 61-year-old Senator Sheriff is too cantankerous and often too flighty and impulsive to easily make up his mind one way or the other. It is even doubtful sometimes whether he can recognise his own ideological leanings. He started out as a progressive of some sort in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1990, flirted with the unprincipled transition of the late Sani Abacha government during which he was elected as a senator on the platform of the United Nigeria Congress Party, then migrated to the mildly conservative All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in 1999 on whose platform he became governor in 2003, briefly waltzed his way back into progressivism, whether heartfelt or affected, through the iconoclastic APC as a foundation member, and then after much hemming and hawing pitched tent with the conservative PDP in 2014 where he brazenly and abruptly schemed his way into the party’s leadership in February 2016.

    So far, he has not publicly disclosed where he wants his shrinking number of supporters to berth, whether in the APC, as some of them moaned regretfully, or in the PDP where they are outnumbered, outgunned and outmanoeuvred with humiliating ferocity. Indeed, whether he will give direction to his supporters anytime soon is debatable because of his impulsiveness and general lack of depth and reflection. But there is no doubt that once he makes up his mind, he truly gives the cause his all. More, there is even now no indication that his supporters are of such number and possess such vibrant tenacity that they are still amenable to his dictation and fading voice. There are pointers to the fact that many of them have already become so impatient that they may be inclined to pursue independent ambitions and options. If Senator Sheriff still has some time at all to impose some discipline on his supporters, it is doubtful whether it will yield him the desired result.

    Senator Sheriff met his litigious match in Senator Makarfi. Feisty, rich, colourful and intrepid, the former Borno governor gives as much as he gets. His failure to scheme his way into the sort of prominence he thought his stature deserved in the APC in 2013 might have laid the foundation for his political peregrinations that saw him come to grief in the PDP barely three years later. Riding on the crest of a disputed judgement of two High Courts in Abuja and Port Harcourt, he was lucky to receive a subsequent approving judgement from the Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt. But that favourable judgement merely prolonged his tenure as NWC chairman of the PDP. Eventually, a little over a year after he climbed to the dizzying position of chairman of a party he joined only two years before, the proud and uncompromising former Borno governor is, strictly speaking, without a party. In name, he is still a member of the PDP; but in reality, he is unable to subject himself to a rival he disdains so much and with whom he rules out any form of compromise.

    The more Senator Sheriff postpones a final decision on his political direction and destination, the more difficult it becomes to make up his mind or give leadership to his fretting supporters. He has not become less wealthy, nor less fearsome and inflexible. To that extent, he can both afford to wait placidly and to growl when the occasion and the emotions seize him. He cannot go back to the APC until some seismic events occur in that fractured and desperate party. And he cannot realistically stay in the PDP that has just dethroned him and made a mockery of his political sagacity. Left high and dry, and consumed by a desperate desire to belong somewhere in a country where political leaders are adept at blackmailing business moguls, the former Borno governor will have to hope for a celestial sleight of hand to reabsorb him into the hypothetical mainstream. For a man so comfortable in his own skin, no matter how badly pigmented, and so unused to walking a tightrope, he faces the appalling dilemma of being a political applicant when he should be courted as the most adorable political suitor.

    Since his support base is so depleted as to be incapable of lending him support or offering him a bargaining chip in either of the two main parties, he faces the daunting prospect of relying almost entirely on his wealth and pugnaciousness to shore up his political standing and crumbling political empire. His men are discouraged, and he himself is confused. But even though he does not possess it, he hopes that he can still take advantage of one hypothetical joker quite capable of catapulting him either over the top or at least into some renewed prominence. That joker straddles the two political divides, and it consists of either a desperate PDP eager to win the 2019 polls and needing every fighter it can get, especially a tested and famous political pugilist like Senator Sheriff, or an equally desperate President Muhammadu Buhari whose support base has become so eroded that he would need famous converts like the former Borno State governor to weary his enemies in 2019, if it came to that.

    The battle for 2019, which is gradually and faintly unfolding, is by no means clear-cut. The PDP ground forces may not be quaintly arrayed in battle at the moment, but their intentions are fiercely obvious. They may not have made atonement for the damage they did to the polity, not to say the economy, but they have clumsily put all that behind them, and are prepared to give battle to the APC next year. It was thought that Senator Sheriff was interested in the 2019 presidential battle, thereby explaining his fancy footwork in the party that saw him attempting to railroad the PDP into a form of unaccustomed monarchy, his monarchy. If he is to return to the same party, if his help will be needed to shore up the party’s defences against a rampaging APC, party leaders will have to offer him humiliating concessions. It is unlikely they will be so high-minded.

    Will Senator Sheriff, therefore, return to a party he left so abruptly in 2014, especially now that the APC evidently lacks colour and character, not to talk of being devoid of the big names that magnificently drove the party into power in 2015? The offer, if it ever comes from the depleted ranks of the president’s supporters, may be tempting; but for a divisive and combative Senator Sheriff, a man so self-sufficient and so ideologically independent in all he does, it is hard to see him submitting to authority on a scale he is unused to, not to say violently opposed to. But he also customarily drives hard bargain. If the ruling party should experience a tumult next year and many of its great and notable pillars jump ship, it may not be inconceivable to also see the former Borno governor attempting to fish in that shallow, restrictive pond abandoned by fleeing party bosses.

    There is yet a third option for the gloomy Borno politician. There are a dozen or more political parties which good fortune and circumstances might conspire to catalyse into prominence. Senator Sheriff might wish to fraternise with one or two of these promising dark horses, where his wealth, disposition and worldview could see him making a pitch for leadership. But no one knows assuredly whether the former governor is not by now tired of his nomadic political lifestyle, nor whether he would not prefer to wait very patiently in the cold until he is courted and offered a tantalysing position hard to resist. What is, however, certain is that Senator Sheriff will not make up his mind as quickly as his disenfranchised and feckless supporters will.

  • PDP Senate Caucus rejects Sheriff’s invitation

    PDP Senate Caucus rejects Sheriff’s invitation

    The Senate Caucus of the  Peoples Democratic Party(PDP),  on Wednesday in Abuja, turned down an invitation extended to it by Sen. Modu Sheriff and opted for wider consultation in resolving the leadership tussle in the party.

    The Chairman of the caucus, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, made this known while addressing journalists shortly after a closed-door meeting of the caucus.

    Akpabio, who is also the Senate Minority Leader, said Sheriff had extended a letter, dated March 6 to the caucus for a meeting.

    He assured that the caucus would continue to push for an out of court settlement regarding the current leadership tussle in the party.

    He, however, said the meeting of all major stakeholders would be a better option.

    “We held this meeting because there was a letter from Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff to the caucus and we had to meet first to know whether this is the right time.

    “Whether the meeting is right or not, what we agreed is that the leadership meets first and thereafter we meet with the Sheriff group, the Makarfi group and the BOT.

    “When this happens, we will then see whether all can come to a consensus and not just the caucus running to the party office to meet Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff. That will look like sectionalism.

    “As a caucus, we believe strongly in peace and we believe in the unity of the Peoples Democratic Party so that Nigeria can have a robust democracy.

    “We believe that without the PDP being strong and united, Nigeria may slide into a one party state and democracy may be in peril,’’ he said.

    According to him, for the party to succeed with any alternative to court processes, it is pertinent to meet all major stakeholders, including governors and National Caretaker Committee.

    He stressed the need for the stakeholders in PDP to spearhead a major political turnaround that would bring lasting peace to the party.

    “If we succeed in doing so, it could even be a major way out, instead of continuous processes in court.

    “We will pursue that option without prejudice to the ongoing court processes.’’

    The chairman said the caucus also discussed about the overall well-being of the nation, prayed and wished President Muhammadu Buhari quick recovery and quick return to the country.’’

    On the recent defection of some PDP Senators to APC, Akpabio said it did not affect the strength of the party in the Upper Chamber.

    According to him, the claims that PDP representation in Senate is threatened, is unfounded.

    “I don’t see any `defection’ happening, I only see interest playing out.

    “PDP in the Senate is still very strong and very robust. We started with 49 Senators and we are still well over 40, we are still going to get more.

    “So, how can you say defection of two or three Senators who have interest outside the chambers will affect the unity and strength of the caucus.

    He urged Nigerians to ignore the insinuation, adding that local circumstances rather than wrangling in the party was responsible for the defection.

    He said, “Even if there were no wrangling in PDP, there will still be defections.

    “If you assess your chances of a re-election in 2019 in your locality and you see that a would-be opponent is five times your size, you have to look for alternative platform.

    ‘’This is ensure that you don’t lose out in 2019.

    “So, anything that has to do with the strength of the PDP dwindling is propaganda.”

    Akpabio assured PDP supporters across the nation that the party was still vibrant.

    He further said that leadership tussle did not in any way diminish the strength of the party across the country.

    He also said that it was only PDP that would assist the All Progressives Congress (APC) in deepening democracy. (NAN)

  • PDP crisis: Makarfi warns of breakdown of law and order

    PDP crisis: Makarfi warns of breakdown of law and order

    The blame game continued yesterday in the troubled Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
    A faction of the main opposition blamed the reopening of its national secretariat for Chairman Ali Modu Sheriff on the police, which it accused of taking sides.
    Besides, the party accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of having a hand in its misfortune.
    The secretariat was sealed off by the police in June 2015 in the heat of the tussle between Sheriff and the Ahmed Makarfi led Caretaker Committee of the PDP for the control of the party.
    However, acting on the strength of the judgment by the Port Harcourt Division of the Court of Appeal that affirmed Sheriff as National Chairman, the police last Thursday reopened the secretariat for Sheriff and his team.
    But the Makarfi camp has warned that the police action could cause a breakdown of law and order, adding that the police acted in bad faith by allowing Sheriff access to the facility.
    At a media briefing in Abuja yesterday, the spokesman for the Makarfi camp, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, said the police chose to obey the law only when it favoured Sheriff.
    Adeyeye lamented that the police that refused to reopen the secretariat for the Makarfi camp when it won the case against Sheriff at the Federal High Court, reopened the building for Sheriff for winning at the appellate court.
    Apparently in sympathy with the Makarfi camp, a group of women party members, staged a protest at the secretariat to denounce  the reopening of the facility.
    The workers stayed away from the office, in solidarity with the Makarfi group, which they insisted remained the authentic leaders of the party.
    Adeyeye said the Makarfi camp had already filed an appeal at the Supreme Court challenging the Appeal Court judgment and such, the police should ensure that the secretariat remained sealed until the Supreme Court delivers judgment on the matter.
    “In the light of the above, we are calling on the police and the general public and lovers of peace and democracy to ask Senator Sheriff and co. to respect the on-going litigation processes.
    “The police should ensure that Sheriff and co. do not occupy the national secretariat in order to avoid breakdown of law and order. We have noticed that the police have taken sides in this matter, perhaps because of directives from the APC, but a stitch in time saves nine.”
    Accusing the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of complicity in favouring Sheriff, the Makarfi camp said the police and the APC had undermined the rule of law.
    Deploring what he described as forceful takeover of the secretariat, Adeyeye said the keys to the main entrance to the building were given to the chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin, when the  secretariat was sealed off.
    “We know that the keys to the secretariat are still with the BoT but Sheriff entered by breaking the doors, in an action totally unbecoming of a person who has been governor of a state, senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and also claiming to be a National Chairman of a major political party.  We therefore demand that Senator Sheriff and co. vacate the national secretariat immediately”, Adeyeye added.
    Accusing the APC and some of its chieftains of acting hand-in-glove with Sheriff, Adeyeye alleged plots by some government officials to support Sheriff through financial inducements.
    He said: “For the record, just last week, the Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, gave unsolicited advice that we should support Senator Sheriff. That is one instance of their meddlesomeness in the PDP affairs.
    “There is no doubt that Okorocha and co. are happy that their man won at the Appeal Court but very much afraid that he could lose at the Supreme Court.”
    “Also, we have it on good authority that the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has deployed his former Abuja Liaison Officer who was a former Intermediate Officer of the party, Mr. John Enebeli, among others, to lure some members of staff in support of Senator Sheriff by promising them huge sums of money to offset their outstanding allowances.
    “Senator Sheriff is equally luring some employees on the same jumbo promise. Let him recall that he made the same promise when he first assumed office only to dash the hope of the hapless employees.”
    The rival Makarfi camp also alleged plans by Sheriff to receive faceless groups purporting to be executive committees of state chapters and declaring support for the party chairman.
    According to the aggrieved group, the plot is meant to deceive unsuspecting party members and members of the public into believing that Sheriff has gained acceptance of the party’s organs.
    “In the days ahead, the public will be treated to a show of pre-arranged solidarity visits by illegal or non-existent state excos.”
    But in a swift reaction, a member of the Sheriff team, Dr. Ahmed Gulak, asked the Makarfi camp to stop blackmailing the Supreme Court ahead of the hearing of the appeal.
    Also addressing the media yesterday on behalf of Sheriff, Gulak said the two parties had agreed not to pursue the case to the Supreme Court, insisting that there was an agreement to allow the case terminate at the Court of Appeal.
    According to the ex-presidential adviser, the police sealed off the secretariat in 2016 on request from both factions, to avoid breakdown of law and order.
    Gulak said: “Both parties agreed that in order to pursue genuine  reconciliation, nobody should pursue the case again in the Supreme Court, because even if you get court victory you still need the people. So that we can have a convention where national officers will be elected.
    “Supreme Court belongs to all Nigerians. They said they will get judgment from Supreme Court as if it is their institution. You don’t grandstand and blackmail the Supreme Court.
    “If they are going to the Supreme Court, they should be calm. The law does not see your face. It is not a popularity contest; the law is the law.
    Gulak observed that by virtue of the last judgement of the appellate court, all actions taken by the Makarfi caretaker committee remained illegal.
    “Sheriff is still the chairman. He will lead the National Working Committee (NWC) to hold a unity convention. This party is bigger than everybody,” Gulak added.
    He admitted that the protracted crisis had taken a toll on the stability of the party, adding that too much energy had been dissipated on internal squabbles.