By Baron Ike
Danger is still lurking around the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as the camp of sacked former National Chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff is complaining that the Ahmed Makarfi-led camp has failed to adequately integrate them into its activities.
Consequently, the former governor of Borno State and his men are staging a boycott from the convention slated for the Eagles Square in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja tomorrow, Saturday, August 12.
Markafi had said he would reconcile all aggrieved parties, a comment that was magnified by other party chieftains, including the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu who himself called for urgent reconciliation.
Ekweremadu had declared that the Supreme Court ruling of July 12 that gave the leadership of the party to Markafi instead of Sheriff signified “no victor and no vanquished.”
But it appears the so-called reconciliatory moves are not comprehensive enough as the Sheriff’s camp complains they are being marginalised in all areas.
They complained they would not attend the Special Non-elective National Convention on the basis that the Markafi-led team has not considered it necessary to include them in the committees for the convention.
Key members of the Sheriff camp, like Hope Uzodinma, a ranking senator and PDP Board of Trustee member were said to have been ignored as regards the convention planning and committees constitution.
A member of the Sheriff camp told Armadanew.com in Abuja that they will not attend and that they were not considering stopping the convention through another court session. “We would have gone to court but we will not do that because of the mood of the country,” the source told us in his hotel room at Sheraton.
Another member of the camp said they are gradually returning to square one because “lessons have not been learnt and we doubt if the characters that are calling the shots are ready to be magnanimous in victory in the interest of the party and our country.”
He said contrary to claims that Sheriff was allegedly doing the bidding of the All Progressive Congress (APC), “those who are actually working for the APC within the PDP are all over the place.”
Meanwhile, more than 3,000 delegates from across the country are expected at the convention on Saturday.
Addressing a world press conference on Friday, August 11 National Publicity Secretary of the party, Dayo Adeyeye, said that the delegates from the six geo-political zones were already in town for the big event.
Describing the convention as a unity gathering of the PDP family, Adeyeye said that the international community was in Abuja to monitor the exercise.
“It will be a carnival-like convention, the like of which we have never seen before. We have delegates from the Africa Union, the United Nations and the rest of the international community,” he added.
Obviously elated by the positive twist of events since the August 12, 2017 Supreme Court judgment affirming the leadership of the Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee, Adeyeye said that there would have been nothing left of the party if the ruling had gone the other way, an apparent reference to the then Sheriff-led faction of the party.
“This unity convention is going to be a celebration for the PDP. I can tell you that if the decision of the Supreme Court had gone the other way, there would have been no PDP today,” he noted, even as he called on Nigerians to be vigilant, lest they fall to the propaganda of the ruling APC.
While enumerating some of the giant strides of the PDP in the course of its 16 years in power, Adeyeye said that the onus was now on Nigerians to decide which of the political parties mean well for them and the country.
He said: “Nigerians remember with nostalgia life under the PDP and they are yearning for it to come back.
“I challenge anybody to deny that the achievements of this great party are comparable to any other in Nigeria.
“We bequeathed the largest economy in Africa to the APC but they squandered it within six months to one year.”
He described the two years administration of President Muhammadu Buhari “as the worst era in the history of Nigeria.”
Adeyeye also chided the current administration in the fight against corruption, describing same as “a witch-hunt of the opposition.”