Chairman of the caretaker committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi has accused national chairman Ali Modu Sheriff of frustrating the peace process.
Makarfi, who made the accusation in Abuja yesterday while meeting some Northern leaders of the PDP, said Sheriff reneged on a proposal by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
He told the gathering that Sheriff refused to abide by an arrangement where both of them would resign their positions. He also blamed the Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson for presenting a convention report to Sheriff without consultation.
“When Dickson came to meet me on his committee’s report, I told him, you are one of the governors that met with former President Goodluck Jonathan and he spelt out the proposal of peace plan which he communicated to the National Assembly caucus, communicated to us (caretaker committee) and other organs of the party.
“And I asked him, are you now removing yourself from that? Why didn’t you table what you have before your colleagues? I also asked him whether he had taken pains to read the Port Harcourt Appeal Court judgment and he said no.
“That judgement is based on two premises which we did not accept. The first premise, which we did not accept in our appeal to the Supreme Court, that the tenure of three members of the NWC will expire in august this year and 18 will expire in July 2018.
“If you now propose to hold convention in June, what are you going to achieve? How will the June convention is different from last year’s in Portharcourt and he said he didn’t think about that.
“The proposal on the way forward is to revert to the status quo as pronounced by the court of appeal. This is what I told Dickson, that he should go back to his colleague governors and other organs of the party to clear the issue. As far as we are concerned, the caretaker committee has no position other than what the organs of the party.
“Again, having reverted to the status quo, everybody will now formally resign. If everybody will resign, then the solicitors of the organs of the party will now sit down and look at all the legal issues involved and then draw up an MoU that will serve as settlement of parties. This will be deposited at the Supreme Court as the settlement of the crisis.
“Even if this is not provided in the constitution of the party, INEC is going to accept it and no one is going to rubbish PDP on that.
“In response, I told the former president that the caretaker committee has nothing against his proposal but that it will be presented before the organs and if accepted, the caretaker committee will stand by it.
“Former President Jonathan said he told Sheriff to go and consult and after his reply, he will get back to him. Uptill now he has not gotten back to him. What it means is that perhaps, he did not get positive response from Sheriff.”
Some of those present at the meeting were chairman former minister of police affairs, Adamu Maina Waziri; former minister of information, Prof Jerry gana; Aminu Wali; former PDP youth leader, Abdullahi Maibasira; Sen Saidu Kumo; Sen Aruwa; chairman of former ministers, Kabiru Turaki; former governor of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Bala Mohammed; former governor of Adamawa Boni Haruna.
Former governor of Kano State Ibrahim Shekarau; Hon Tukur; Gen. David Jeribewon; former governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa; former governor of Niger State, Dr Babangida Aliyu; former deputy national publicity secretary of PDP, Abdullahi Jalo; former deputy governor of Sokoto, Murtahr Shagari; former women minister, Hajiya Inua Ciroma; former governor of Plateau, Sen Jonah Jang; Sen Abubakar Gada; Sen. Solomon Ewuga among others.
