23 PDP State Chairmen Throw Support For Modu Sheriff

23 PDP State Chairmen Throw Support For Modu Sheriff

23 out of the 36 state chapter chairmen have thrown their weight behind the National Chairman of the party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff.

They also said they were backing recommendations made by the Governor Seriake Dickson’s Peace and Reconciliation Committee for a unity national convention to hold not later than August this year.

The state chairman stated this after their meeting in Abuja on Friday night.

In their communique, which was made available to journalists on Saturday, they expressed concerns that if the ongoing leadership crisis in the party was not resolved quickly, it would affect the fortune of the party, especially as the Independent National Electoral Commission had released the 2019 election timetable.

The communique of the meeting was read by the Federal Capital Territory PDP chairman, Mr. Yunusa Suleiman.

He said he and his colleagues were supporting Sheriff because of the judgement of the Court of Appeal, which pronounced him as the party’s substantive national chairman.

Suleiman added that the support of the chairmen for Sheriff was without prejudice to the ongoing appeal lodged by the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee of the party, at the Supreme Court.

He said whatever decision reached by the apex court would be adhered to by them as well.

The chairman insisted that the political solution being proffered by former president Goodluck Jonathan was the best way out of the crisis.

The communique added, “The PDP state chairmen are very concerned about the crises engulfing the party as it is degenerating into the several defections from the party across the nation.

“Bearing in mind the upcoming Presidential elections timeline recently announced by the INEC, as key political actors of the polity, we cannot sit back and allow our party to degenerate to this level and we have thus decided to come forward and proffer solutions to this crisis.

“In line with the only template presented by the Peace and Reconciliation Committee of our party headed by Henry Seriake Dickson, Governor of Bayelsa State, we wish to state that we support the recommendation that a political solution is the best and only solution to our crisis without prejudice to the ongoing judicial processes,

“We are also in support of the committees’ recommendation of an all inclusive unity convention to be held as soon as possible.

“We, as legitimately elected chairmen wish to state on the grounds of clarity that we shall never be in support or be a part of any plan to tinker with the option of leaving the PDP and forming another party.”

The communique was signed by 23 participants at the meeting.

But in a swift move, Makarfi described the state chairmen as fake, and dissidents.

Makarfi, who spoke through a member of his committee, Prince Dayo Adeyeye on Saturday, added that the action of the chairmen was a ruse.

He said, “We wish to state without ambiguity that the action of these elements is a ruse, lies from the pit of hell and a mere continuation of impunity of Senator Sheriff and his dissident backers within the party.

“For the records, we wish to make it clear that many of those men are not elected state chairmen of our party, even when Senator Sheriff was the recognised chairman of the party.”