Few days after reaching an understanding to bury their differences, the two factions of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have renewed hostilities.

The cause of the latest crisis is the decision of Ali Modu Sheriff, national chairman of the party, to replace staff of the PDP secretariat who were not cooperating with him.

Sheriff had declared their jobs vacant and gave them a seven-day ultimatum to return the property of the party in their possession.

But Ahmed Makarfi, caretaker committee chairman, asked the old staff to ignore Sheriff’s threat.

“His threat against our hard working staff should therefore be ignored and treated with utmost contempt coming from a lawless impostor,” said Dayo Adeyeye, the publicity secretary, who responded on behalf of the Makarfi group.

On Thursday, Sheriff and Makarfi signed an undertaking with the PDP national reconciliation committee, led by Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state, to cease fire.

They both pledged to work together for the restoration of genuine peace to the party.

But on Sunday, Sheriff described Makarfi committee as illegal, saying with the pronouncement of the court of appeal in Port Harcourt, on February 17, “such a group is not supposed to be in existence”.

He appealed to the media not to refer to Makarfi group as a faction of the PDP and insisted that the group was illegal.

Sheriff also warned Makarfi and his group to stop interfering in the affairs of the party.

“Makarfi should behave himself. He should not interfere in our business, because we are not interested in his private business,” Sheriff said in a statement issued on his behalf by Cairo Ojuogboh, his deputy.

“Any further careless statement from him will force us to reconsider our earlier peace agreement.

“We have already employed staff who are running the bureaucracy efficiently. If Makarfi so desires, he should keep the old staff, just as he is doing now.

“We have had enough and enough is enough of this.”

He added that his faction was preparing to complete state congresses, where necessary, and “working hard” on the planned national convention.

“We will not be distracted by inconsequential issues from our set objective to return the party to the grassroots,” he said.

“We must prevent anybody with the agenda of killing the party, especially those, who were brought to the party by those, who have already decamped to other parties.”

Sheriff warned the old PDP staff, who still have the party’s property in their possession, to return them immediately.

“They should return them within the seven days grace or we will be left with no other option than to hand them over to the police,” Sheriff said.

But the Makarfi group which described Sheriff as “a lawless impostor”, urged the staff and party stakeholders to ignore him.

“We went out of our way few days ago to reach accommodation with them even when some of our top leaders had serious misgivings about any type of talk with them given their unreliability,” Makarfi said.

He said his committee showed its goodwill, while Sheriff-led national working committee (NWC) demonstrated their “bad faith”.

“We have always known that Sheriff and his co-travellers especially, Cairo Ojuogbo, were never men of honour with whom one can reach any agreement,” he said.

“But we tagged along to avoid being accused of unnecessary intransigence.

“Since the leopard cannot change its spot, it is now very clear that no agreement or political solution can be reached with these bunch of people with huge integrity deficit.”

He described Ojougboh as an impostor and a rabble-rouser in a “non-existent NWC”, saying Sheriff does not have the constitutional requirement to constitute an NWC.

“His threat against our hard working staff should therefore be ignored and treated with utmost contempt coming from a lawless impostor,” he said.

“For the education of Sheriff and his cohorts, our appeal at the supreme court is already on.

“To that extent, the position and status of the national caretaker committee remains completely unaltered.

“Since they cannot comprehend even very simple matters, we will use a simple analogy.

“If a governor loses at the election petitions tribunal and at the court of appeal, does he cease to be a governor even when his appeal is pending before the supreme court?

“Would the civil servants then refuse to serve him?”

He explained that the position of the law was that he would remain the governor.

He added that all government employees would continue to service his government until otherwise determined by the supreme court.

Makarfi added that his committee members had tried strenuously to reach Dickson to report “this deliberate violation of the truce” but that they were not able to get through to him.

Source: The Cable

The Supreme Court has fixed May 4 for the continuation of hearing in appeals concerning the ongoing leadership crisis of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

The apex court gave the date on Thursday, after listening to counsel’s arguments in the appeals challenging the February 17judgement of the Appeal Court which confirmed former Borno State governor, Ali Sheriff, as leader of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.

Mr. Sheriff’s challenger for leadership of the party, Ahmed Makarfi, had approached the Supreme Court after the ruling by the Port Harcourt Division of appellate court, starting the final phase of the judicial battle for the PDP leadership that has lasted almost a year.

The judicial struggle began on May, 17 2016 when a Lagos Division of the Federal High Court ordered the party to suspend its national convention earlier scheduled to hold on May 21 that year.

Contrary to that order, however, the PDP held its convention, amidst conflicting information from the Makarfi and Sheriff led factions of the party, respectively, regarding the said convention.

During the convention on May 21, Mr. Makarfi was elected leader of the caretaker committee of the party.

Shortly after that convention, however, loyalist of the Sheriff faction filed a motion before the Federal High Court, FHC, in Lagos, challenging the emergence of Mr. Makarfi as leader of the party.

Consequently on May 24, the court presided by Justice Ibrahim Buba nullified the emergence of the Makarfi-led leadership of the party, and reinstated Mr. Sheriff as leader of the party.

After that judgement, other judgements emanating from separate divisions of the FHC, gave controversial rulings on the convention.

In February, however, the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt announced Mr. Sheriff leader of the party, paving the way for the suit at the Supreme Court.

On Thursday, at the commencement of hearing in Mr. Makarfi’s application, the counsel representing the Sheriff faction, Akin Olujimi, said his client (PDP) was not aware of any application, challenging the emergence of the current leadership of the party.

He, however, prayed the court to set aside the application, stressing that ‘the appropriate authorities to have made the said application have not decided to appeal.”

The counsel representing the second defendant in Mr. Sheriff’s appeal aligned with Mr. Olijimi’s submission.

The counsel, Lateef Fagbemi, said his client, the National Secretary of the party from Mr. Sheriff’s faction, Wale Oladipo, would want the court to set aside the application made by Mr. Makarfi’s counsel, Kanu Agabi, stressing that the appellant had no authorisation to have made the said application.

He also prayed the court to determine the application by the Sheriff faction, before hearing the main appeal by the faction led by Mr. Makarfi.

In his response, Mr. Agabi, a former attorney general of Nigeria, said the respondents should make the submissions written.

Mr. Olujimi had prayed the court to allow them make their submissions within a period of 21 days. So, after hearing the arguments of counsel, the panel of five justices, led by Mohammed Tanko, adjourned to May 4 for hearing of the appeals by the Sheriff-led faction.

Source: Premium Times

The factional PDP chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff has won his case at the Appeal Court. As a result of this latest development, the caretaker committee may have been nullified by the court, upholding Justice Abang’s judgement.

Recall that the power tussle between Ali Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi have been ongoing for a very long time now.

It was gathered that the three judges of the court in a unanimous decision agreed that the Modu Sheriff is the chairman of the PDP.

Chieftains of the party from the two sides had at various fora expressed readiness to abide by the outcome of the appeal court verdict with a view to bringing lasting peace in the party.

The PDP has not been able to play the role of leading opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) because of the crisis ravaging it from within.

An appeal court in Abuja had on December 16, 2016, adjourned indefinitely, the separate hearing in the leadership tussle so as to pave way for the Port Harcourt division of the court to exhaust the case before it.

Both Makarfi and Sheriff have been operating from satellite offices following the closure of the national headquarters of the party, at Wadata Plaza in Abuja.

The crisis in the PDP is also raging in many states where Makarfi and Sheriff share the loyalty of members.