The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party,
Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has vowed not to attend any reconciliation meeting
with former President Goodluck Jonathan, stating that reconciliation has died
in the party.
The former Borno State governor was speaking on the botched
reconciliatory meeting called by the former President in Abuja on Thursday.
He accused the former President of deviating from agreements
he said he had with him before they agreed to be part of the meeting, which was
held at the Yar’Adua Centre.
Sheriff, who walked out of the meeting when he was denied
the opportunity to preside over it, said that there was no way the party would
be meeting and he would sit as a mere spectator when he remains the only person
recognised by law as the authentic national chairman of the party.
Speaking to our correspondent in a telephone interview
through his appointed Deputy National Chairman, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh in Abuja on
Friday, Sheriff also said he would not appoint anyone to join the 40-member
committee the former President promised to set up on the reconciliation.
Rather, he said he would stick to the recommendations made
by the Peace and Reconciliation Committee headed by the Governor of Bayelsa
State, Mr. Seriake Dickson.
He said, “We will never attend any peace meeting to be
called by the former President on reconciliation anymore. No. Never! We won’t
go there. We are no longer interested in such reconciliation.
“We will not attend any other meeting to be called by him.
We would cut off every leprous hand in the party. The former President can only
chair a committee on his private foundation, not that of the PDP when we have a
national chairman.
“We are not happy with the way he handled the failed meeting
on Thursday. He did not respect the Court of Appeal judgment which pronounced
Sheriff as the national chairman of the party.
“He (Jonathan) has no legal backing to chair PDP
Stakeholders’ meeting when we have a sitting chairman. The former President
does not have such a right. The failed meeting had scattered all the good works
achieved by the Dickson committee.
“We hail our governors, except the duo of Nyesom Wike and
Ayodele Fayose of Rivers and Ekiti states respectively, who worked against the
meeting.”
However, the National Caretaker Committee of the party
headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi disagreed with Sheriff, saying the former President
had the right to lead the meeting.
He said since the initiative to call the meeting came from
the former leader, it was his right to preside over it and also dictate how the
meeting would progress.
He said it was wrong for Sheriff to have wanted to preside
over a meeting where issues that would affect the party’s leadership would be
discussed.
Makarfi, who spoke through the spokesperson of the caretaker
committee, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, described Sheriff as being selfish.
He said in order to give peace a chance; the caretaker
committee agreed that Sheriff would speak at the gathering before Makarfi, but
regretted that instead of being at the gathering on time, Sheriff decided to
come late to the meeting.
Adeyeye said, “Jonathan conveyed the meeting and he had the
right to chair it, because it was for reconciliation. If it was not called by
the former President, more than 90 per cent of those in attendance would not
have been there.
“You cannot preside over your own case. It is like a quarrel
between husband and wife. There is no way either of them would have presided
over a meeting where such disagreement would be discussed.
“We agreed that he (Sheriff) would speak first after the
former President. But instead, he came late to the meeting, hours after it had
started. He was to speak after the former President, but he came when the
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Senator Walid Jibrin, was almost done with
his speech.”
Adeyeye added that in order to avoid crisis, Makarfi who was
to speak after Sheriff was asked not to because Sheriff was not at the
gathering then.
“He came late to the meeting, which is even against the
protocol. So, instead of Makarfi to speak, the BoT chairman took over the
podium,” he added.
Adeyeye, a former minister of state for works, said the
gathering also agreed with the position of Wike and Fayose that Sheriff should
not be allowed to lead the meeting because “it was a reconciliation meeting and
that we needed an impartial person to lead.”
He said Sheriff remains a “disputed” chairman of the party
until the Supreme Court makes a pronouncement on it, adding that both Sheriff
and Ojougboh “are illiterate because they don’t know the genesis of the party
and what it stands for.”
He added, “Sheriff should leave our party for us and should
not destroy it. He does not have the support of more than 10 per cent of
members of the party. He is a disputed chairman. As for us, we will continue to
respect the former President because he is the leader of the party.”
Also reacting to the development, the Governor of Ekiti
State, and Chairman, PDP Governors’ Forum, Mr. Ayo Fayose, in a telephone
interview with Saturday PUNCH, described Sheriff as an impostor and someone
sent by the ruling All Progressives Congress to destroy PDP.
Fayose said, “I will not work with him. He is a betrayal of
confidence and does not represent peace and hope. I will not be part of any
meeting with such a person. If I may holistically respond to his statement on
no reconciliation, the statement is good riddance to bad rubbish.
“His (Sheriff) alliance with former President Olusegun
Obasanjo and PDP destroyed All Peoples Party and All Nigeria Peoples Party. He
is at it again but this will be the last of the series. I regret my association
with him and bringing him forth initially.”
Fayose alleged that anyone supporting, promoting or
financing Sheriff is an enemy of Nigeria. “Our country will not end up in a one
party system which I imagine is the reason why his business with the APC is
thriving,” he added.
Also in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu
Adelusi, Fayose was quoted as saying, “It is now obvious that he (Sheriff) is
working for enemies of former President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP.”
The governor said; “From what Ali Modu Sheriff did
yesterday, it should now be clear to all well-meaning Nigerians that he is not
acting on his own. He is an agent of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)
and by extension an enemy of democracy in Nigeria.”
“If he (Sheriff) cannot sit with the leader of our party, Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan, I am also telling him that we in the PDP are also not
interested in holding any discussion with him. He is a virus that has infected
the PDP and by the grace of God, he will be cured permanently.”
In a similar development, Fayose, who spoke on a programme
on Channels Television monitored by one of our correspondents, said he was not
bound to remain in the PDP as he could decide to pursue his political ambition
elsewhere.
The Ekiti State governor said that nobody could make him
remain in a place if he does not truly wish to be there.
Fayose accused Sheriff of insulting leaders of the party
with his attitude, describing him as an “impossible character who nothing can
change.”
Meanwhile, Ojougboh said that Sheriff and his team would
soon commence a nationwide mobilisation of members of the party with the hope
of preparing them for the national convention.
Asked when the convention would hold, Ojougboh said the
members of the National Working Committee would announce the date and
programmes “as soon as we are done with the nationwide tour.”
By Dayo Oketola, Olusola Fabiyi and Eric Dumo
