Factional National
Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sheriff has
expressed readiness to return to the negotiating table with the party’s
National Caretaker Committee.
Sheriff said he was
now ready to resolve the leadership crisis in the party.
The former governor
of Borno State said this in Abuja, yesterday, when he received a faction of the
PDP who paid him a solidarity visit in his office in the Federal Capital
Territory (FCT).
He, however, said
the dialogue would take place if chairman of the caretaker committee, Senator
Ahmed Makarfi, was also willing to return to the negotiation table.
A peace process between the two factions broke
down, recently, when they could not agree on the terms for reconciliation.
Sheriff said as part
of his commitment to resolving the
leadership crisis that has rocked the PDP since May 2016, he suggested that
Makarfi and himself should step down to allow for the emergence of a new
leadership for the party. He disclosed that Makarfi spurned the idea.
The PDP leader said
with the rejection of his suggestion that Makarfi and himself relinquish their
positions so as to end the crisis, both factions would have to wait for the
decision of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court to resolve the leadership
crisis.
“Permit me,
therefore, to state that I have, in all sincerity, tried to resolve this party
crisis.
“I have offered that
both the caretaker committee and the National Working Committee be dissolved to
give way for a new, independent leadership.
“But, the caretaker
committee has refused to agree to anything except recognise 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 Senator Makarfi sees reason to do so. I have been blackmailed to the extent
that I am alleged to be sponsored by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to
build a one party system. Also, 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 told his visitors.
The former Borno
governor, who described himself as “the agent of change for multiparty
democracy in Nigeria,” said his struggle is to change the way things are done
in PDP.
sunnews
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