Sheriff who was affirmed chairman of the party by the Appeal
Court had written Fayose who is the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, to
nominate governors that would attend the party’s proposed national convention.
The letter dated March 29, 2017 was signed by factional National
Secretary, Prof. Wole Oladipo.
The PDP Reconciliation Committee headed by Governor Seriake
Dickson of Bayelsa State had recommended that the party should hold a National
Unity Convention not later than June 30, as part of efforts to end the
protracted crisis.
The committee also recommended that seven governors be
nominated to join nominees from other organs of the party to form the PDP
National Convention Committee.
But Fayose, in a letter dated April 4, 2017 entitled:
“Re-nomination of governors for the National Convention”, said he should be
left out of the “Kangaroo convention.”
The letter read: “I received your letter dated March 29,
2017 and signed by one Prof. Wole Oladipo who claims to be the National
Secretary of the Peoples’ Democratic Party requesting me as the chairman of the
PDP Governors Forum to send list of governors for your proposed convention.
“I wish to state that, I, Ayo Fayose do not recognise you as
the party’s national chairman and will not have anything to do with you. I
don’t have interest in a kangaroo convention being remote-controlled by the
APC-led Federal Government.
“You are, therefore, advised to leave me out of any
arrangement in which you are being portrayed as the leader of the party.
“I will not welcome any further correspondence from Ali-Modu
Sheriff’s faction because I’m not interested in the so-called convention,”
Fayose said.
When contacted, acting National Publicity Secretary of the
Sheriff faction, Mr. Bernard Mikko told Daily Sun in a telephone interview in Abuja
that he would not respond to comments by Fayose.
“I have no comment to that. But all I will tell you is
that the National Chairman is committed to building a strong PDP, which the founding
fathers will be proud of, “he said.
He also declined to confirm if the Sheriff-led National
Working Committee (NWC) had written formally to the PDP Governors Forum to
submit names of its nominees for the convention committee.
The PDP had been embroiled in crises with Sheriff and
Senator Ahmed Makarfi leading a faction each and laying claim to the leadership
of the opposition party. The Makarfi faction has gone to the Supreme
Court to challenge the Appeal Court judgment that affirmed Sheriff as the
genuine leader of the PDP.
Efforts to get the two factions to bury their differences
which escalated following the botched convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers State
that threw up Makarfi as interim chairman have met a brick wall.
By Wole
Balogun and Ndubisi Orji
