A
factional chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali
Modu Sheriff, yesterday, asked the chairman of the party’s national
caretaker committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, to return to the negotiation
table in order to resolve the leadership crisis bedeviling the party.
Sheriff
claimed that he had at one of their reconciliatory meetings suggested
that he and Makarfi stepped down and allowed an “independent leadership”
composed of equal number of persons from each camp but that he
allegedly declined.
Addressing
a press conference yesterday, in Abuja, Sheriff, a former governor of
Borno State, said there was still a window for Makarfi to consider
adopting the proposal, adding that if the talks among the stakeholders
within the party yielded positive result, the party would hold its
national convention in the first quarter of 2017, where new leaders
would be elected.
The
former lawmaker said he wanted to avoid the Ondo State scenario where,
he claimed, Governor Olusegun Mimiko returned and everybody left the PDP
for him.
“The
caretaker committee has refused to agree to anything except recognize
them and let the caretaker committee run the party till 2018. We have,
therefore, resigned our fate to the decision of their lordships of the
Court of Appeal and Supreme Courts. However, we are ready to return to
the negotiation table today, if Sen. Makarfi sees reason to do so.
“We
want every voice to be heard and every vote to count. Hopefully, we
shall conduct a free and fair convention in the first quarter of 2017.
In the course of the last six months, we have worked assiduously to
reposition our great party, the PDP, through harnessing the enormous
potentials of the party at the grassroots.
“I
have been blackmailed to the extent that I am alleged to be sponsored
by the APC to build a one-party system. Contradictorily, I have been
accused at the same time of staying on to stage my emergence as the
presidential candidate of the PDP.
“This
is the extent to which the illegal caretaker committee can go to hold
on to power. Blackmail has been their stock in trade,” Sheriff said.
DailyTrust
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