The perennial leadership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party could be viewed from different directions. While many have linked the crisis in the main opposition party to the fight between the sacked National Chairman, Senator Ali Modu- Sheriff and the Chairman of the PDP National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, over its leadership, others have looked beyond that confine.
In some other quarters, fingers are being pointed at the ambition for the 2019 election as the crux of the matter.
Modu-Sheriff’s insistence on not giving up until what he calls the rule of law prevailed and the party machinery returned to its rightful owners is cited as an indication that the crisis in the PDP is far from ending soon.
The embattled national chairman is alleged to be fighting tooth and nail to prevent the party machinery from falling into the hands of the former governor of Kaduna State and chairman of the National Caretaker Committee, Makarfi, who is also believed to be working for former vice president Atiku Abubakar.
Conversely, Sheriff is also being accused and perceived as a mole by stakeholders of the PDP. In fact, the general consensus is that Sheriff may be acting a script of the powersthat- be, who may have seen signs that former vice president Abubakar may be preparing the ground to contest against President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.
A source, which pleaded anonymity, told our correspondent that, “Sheriff is fighting to ensure the party is engrossed in litigation close to 2019”.
This, according to sources, would weaken the PDP, create division within its fold, render it crisis- ridden and unattractive to sell the presidential ambition of Abubakar.
A source added that the PDP governors might have since realized their mistakes after they handed over the party to Sheriff. The Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose and his Rivers State counterpart, Nyesom Wike, may have initially underrated Sheriff’s political prowess, thinking he would be amenable to their control.
There are opinions that the PDP may not have been embroiled in the current crisis if the party had not hurriedly made public its plan to zone the party’s presidential ticket to the North in 2019.
Secondly, the action, against all odds, by the PDP governors, who foisted former governor of Borno State on the party as its national chairman, may also be partly responsible for the crisis.
Indeed, the Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s Post-Election Assessment Committee Report had recommended that the North should take a shot at the Presidency under the PDP in 2019, a recommendation that has since been ratified by the National Executive Committee.
Sources at the Wadata House, headquarters of the PDP in Abuja said there are permutations that Abubakar may likely defect from the APC and join the PDP in the first quarter of 2018 and he is being tipped to clinch the opposition party’s presidential ticket in 2019, a development that Sheriff is allegedly working against.
Former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, is another strong contender for the PDP presidential ticket. But the odd is against Lamido due to his alleged weak financial strength.
Political watchers are of the opinion that speculation that the ruling APC may be fueling the crisis in the major opposition party may not be far from the truth, after all, especially with allegations by Sheriff that Governor Wike and former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, had been working for an unnamed chieftain of the APC.
Similarly, Sheriff has alleged that the duo of Makarfi and the Secretary of the Caretaker Committee, Senator Ben Obi, met the APC leader twice in Abuja recently.
The embattled PDP national chairman had stated that Makarfi and Obi were the ones working for the APC rather than wrongfully accusing him and his group.
He said, “It is on record that since they came back from the Port Harcourt Convention, they have visited the chieftain of the APC twice and this chieftain is still in APC. Nigerians know the truth, let them not deceive the people.”
In veiled reference to the former vice president, whose presidential ambition is well-known, Sheriff said that it was on record that the caretaker committee had been strategizing with the said APC chieftain with a view to securing the opposition party structure for him ahead of the 2019 presidential race, when he’s expected to quit the ruling party and run on the PDP platform.
“I want to put it on record that if there is anybody that will be accused of working for the APC, it is Makarfi and Senator Ben Obi,” Sheriff said.The former governor of Borno also vowed to reveal details of all the alleged clandestine meetings between Atiku and Makarfi if the latter continued with his attacks on him.
But in the view of former minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode; “Sheriff’s mission in PDP was to destroy the party, just the way he did to other political parties in which he had a stint.
“He came to destroy the PDP and if we did not rise up against him and kick him out when we did, he would have succeeded in his mission. I am proud to have been the first to see him for what he is and to publicly blow the whistle on him.”
Apparently corroborating the position of the former aviation minister, and also denying working for Atiku, Makarfi expressed the willingness of the caretaker committee to receive any individual or group, irrespective of their political affiliations.
A statement signed by the Makarfiled National Caretaker Committee’s Publicity Secretary, Dayo Adeyeye, said, “The public is reminded that one of the problems that led to the removal of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff was attempting to convert himself from a 3 months chairman to not only a substantive chairman but the party’s presidential candidate for 2019. He went further to start offering running mate position to different individuals.
“It is also a fact that as soon as Senator Ali Modu Sheriff was appointed as chairman, many founding members of the Party left. On the other hand, as soon as the national caretaker committee was appointed, people started retracing their steps back to the Party”.
Interestingly, no one could confirm who was right between Sheriff and Makarfi on the claim that the PDP presidential ticket for 2019 was being reserved for the former vice president.
Meanwhile as the political horse trading continues unabated, Sheriff has insisted that the duo of Fayose and Wike begged him before he accepted to be chairman, vowing that he would not allow himself to be humiliated.
According to Sheriff, “I was on my own doing some other business when Ayo Fayose, Governor Wike and others called upon me, almost on their knees, begging me to come and be PDP chairman, having identified my strength and vigour. Initially, I hesitated but later succumbed to their pressure”.
However, in sharp contrast and speaking on the sideline of the aborted convention in Port Harcourt recently, Fayose linked the crisis in the PDP to the ruling APC.
Fayose said “The APC wants the PDP dead because the APC does not want a virile opposition to challenge its obnoxious policies and inability to tackle the problems confronting the country”.
In the middle of this mutual suspicion, Sheriff has accused leaders of the party of being responsible for the crisis in the party.
He made the disclosure at the end of a reconciliation meeting held with some members of the PDP Board of Trustees’ Reconciliation Committee in his office in Abuja.
Sheriff who said that he had a lot of respect for the party’s leaders, said that the crisis in the party wouldn’t have arisen if leaders had been alive to their responsibilities.
He said “If our leaders have taken their responsibilities, we would never have had most of the problems we are facing today.
“When a leader refuses to stand up to his responsibilities, there will be problem. Why am I saying this? Some of our leaders are party to our problems,” Sheriff said.
According to Sheriff, only the observance of the rule of law could resolve the crisis in the party.
“The moment we want to use one impunity to address another, it will not work,” he said.
Following the constitution of a new 13-man National Caretaker Committee, in Port Harcourt on August 17, with a year’s mandate, Sheriff has again kicked against the arrangement, declaring it illegal.
He described the purported NEC meeting of the PDP that took place in Port Harcourt as illegal, null and void.
He said, “The said meeting breaches section 31 sub section 4 of the PDP constitution”.Modu-Sheriff maintained that the PDP constitution did not empower Makarfi to convene such a meeting, saying it was only the national chairman that could preside over the NEC of the party.
“The section provides that it is only the National Chairman who can convene a NEC, after giving three a three-week notice to INEC.
“Even in an emergency situation, one week notice must be given to the National Chairman, who has the sole responsibility to convene the NEC.
“It is sad, that, in the face of obvious disregard to court orders, which halted the convention, some individuals are bent on perpetuating impunity by taking steps to install another contraption on the PDP.
“The rule of law and constitutionality must prevail in all circumstances, as such, whatever decisions arrived at, is not binding and cannot stand in law”.
He took a swipe at the Port Harcourt gathering and described as illegal the purported extension of the tenure of the Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee.
Consequently, Modu-Sheriff called “on the teaming members of PDP to disregard everything that may have taken place in Port Harcourt”, saying everything purported to have been done was in gross violation of court order.
He added, “The Caretaker Committee does not exist in law, and Makarfi should stop parading himself as a PDP official”.
