The Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party has said that the National Chairman of the party, Ali Modu Sheriff, will leave office for a southerner in 2018.
The board, which stated this after its meeting in Abuja on Monday, said that the decision to relieve Sheriff of his duty then was as a result of the zoning of the party’s 2019 presidential ticket to the North.
It said that there would be a midterm convention in 2018 to ratify the transferring of power from Sheriff to a southerner.
However, the board was silent on which of the three geopolitical zones in the South that would occupy the position.
The newly-elected National Secretary of the board, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, made the position of the board known after its seven-hour meeting in Abuja.
He also said that all the grievances arising from the congresses across the country by party members would be looked into by the national leadership of the party.
Maduekwe spoke in the presence of the newly-confirmed Chairman of the Board, Sen. Walid Jibril, and some other members.
He said, “All the grievances articulated by members of the party to make it stronger, should be carefully looked into and we would see how we could carry everybody along.
“Mid-term convention should come in 2018 and from that date, the chairman of the party would step down to pave the way for another person to come from the South.”
Asked if there was a word of commitment from Sheriff that he would step down in 2018, the former Minister of Transportation said that “collective wisdom of the party would prevail on him,” (Sheriff).
With the suspension of the constitution amendment, the initial plan by the party to use Option A4 to pick its candidates for elective positions in 2019 have been jettisioned.
However, the PDP BoT also approved that the national convention slated for May 21 in Rivers State, Port Harcourt be allowed to hold.
It was however gathered that members of the Concerned PDP Stakeholders’ Forum had yet to agree with the board.
The Concerned PDP Stakeholders is made up of 12 other groups within the party.
They are the PDP Former Governors’ Forum, the Northern Elders’ Forum, the Concerned PDP Elders, the PDP Think Tank, the PDP Former Ministers’ Forum, the PDP Reform Group, the PDP Patriotic Movement, the South-West PDP SSGs Group, the PDP National Vanguard, the PDP Youth Democratic Movement and the PDP National Rebirth Group.
A member of one of the groups, on condition of anonymity, said that some PDP governors met with them in Abuja last night, but said that no compromise was reached.
“We are planning our own convention which would be beamed live on a television station across the country. We won’t be part of the Sheriff convention,” he said.
Sheriff, who came late to the meeting, also apologised to members for his lateness and equally apologised to a former minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, over the derogatory statements issued by his Media Adviser, Inuwa Bwala, against the former minister.
Sheriff also spoke on the issue of constitution amendment which the BoT had opposed, saying that he had met with the PDP governors and it had been resolved that the matter of the constitution amendment be suspended in order to give room for more consultations.
He explained that he played no role in the drafting of the contentious amendments proposed to the party’s constitution and therefore should not be blamed for any lapse in it.
Turning to Gana, Sheriff said, “I have not authorised anybody to insult anybody let alone my elder, Jerry Gana. In our culture, the elders are always right. So, I apologise to Gana on behalf of everybody.”
Answering questions from journalists, Gana defended the allegation levelled against him by Sheriff’s aide, saying that the N500m in question was judiciously spent.
The National Executive Committee of the party will meet in Abuja on Tuesday to ratify some of the decisions reached by the BoT.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly Caucus of the PDP said on Monday that the crisis in the leading opposition party would be resolved within the next 48 hours.
Senators and members of the House of Representatives, who belong to the PDP’s fold, rose from a closed-door meeting in Abuja to raise the hope of an early resolution of the crisis.
The meeting, which lasted over one hour, was held at the House of Representatives wing of the National Assembly complex.
The Senate Minority Leader and former Chairman of the PDP Governor’s Forum, Senator Godwill Akpabio, led senators to the meeting, while his counterpart in the House, Mr. Leo Ogor, led House PDP lawmakers to the session.
No comments:
Post a Comment