By AbdulRaheem Aodu
Kaduna
National Caretaker Committee Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Ahmed Makarfi, has said that the agenda of the Bayelsa state Governor, Seriake Dickson, for the party “is bad” and aimed at destabilising it.
Makarfi said for Dickson to have pulled out of a unanimous proposal drafted at a meeting of the 11 PDP governors with ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, only to come up with a personal proposal, which he submitted to Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff’s group without giving a copy to
the former president, PDP BoT chairman and the Makarfi group, “is a mischievous act that bodes ill for the party.”
He stated this in Kaduna at the weekend when he visited the secretariat of the Kaduna state Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) which was gutted by fire last Monday.
He blamed the refusal of Sheriff to accept the governors’ unanimous proposal and the Appeal Court judgment on what he termed the ex-Borno governor’s “parochial interest.”
“Just a week before Governor Dickson submitted his report to Modu Sheriff, the 11 PDP Governors, including himself, met with former President Goodluck Jonathan and came out with a unanimous proposal on the way out of the crisis in the party. Then, out of the 11 PDP Governors, he (Dickson) pulled out and made a proposal about forming convention committee, which he presented to Modu Sheriff.
“Well, for us the issues in the PDP are not just about conducting convention. How do you go for convention, if you don’t address these fundamental issues and achieve reconciliation? You have not talked about the problems, you have not sorted them and you are more concerned about a committee to organise convention; that means you will go and do convention while the crisis is still on,” he said.
Continuing, he said: “
Governor Dickson was at the meeting of the Governors and the former President where they came out with a unanimous proposal, so, how can he pull himself out a week after and make his own proposal? If he had anything contrary to what they agreed on, why didn’t he suggest it at that meeting? He didn’t make sense, out of 11 Governors, you pulled yourself out and you made a separate proposal and presented to Modu Sheriff.
“The proposal by the former President and the 11 Governors was presented to us, to the BOT Chairman and to Modu Sheriff. If anything is going to change, they should go back to former President Jonathan and the other Governors to discuss and review the responses from us, from BOT, from Modu Sheriff and see if there is going to be any modification to the proposal, not for one single governor under whatever name, who was a party to the unanimous proposal, to now come out with a personal proposal.
“But, he spoke with me informally and said he was bringing his proposal, which I never saw. He called the ex-president and they were to meet on Wednesday, then he also called BOT Chairman, who gave him appointment for Wednesday, only for him to go and submit his proposal on Tuesday to Modu Sheriff to go ahead and conduct convention. And that is what Sheriff has been looking for. Now, he gotten somebody asking him to go ahead and conduct convention.
“So, what is Governor Dickson up to? I don’t know, but it is definitely an agenda not good for PDP. His proposal is even a breach of the Court of Appeal judgment, because he is suggesting going for convention in June. Court of Appeal said you cannot hold convention until August, this year, based on the tenure it recognised.”
According to him, even the Sheriff group is not complying with the Court of Appeal judgment, as he (Sheriff) is still parading with party officials he single-handedly appointed after May 21, 2016, despite the court order that the status quo before May 21, should be reverted to.
Speaking further on the PDP crisis and the 2019 general elections, Makarfi said “the crisis is not a determinant factor for 2019 elections outcome, saying neither the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) nor his own party are likely to remain the same by 2019.”
He, however, expressed optimism that PDP, despite its crisis, had perfected its strategies which they were keeping close to their chest, ahead of the gubernatorial elections in Ekiti, Anambra and Osun states, later in the year.
