In what may be a desperate effort to save the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from collapsing, the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) would meet today in Abuja. Also, members of the National Assembly elected on the party’s platform will hold emergency meeting today in Abuja on the crisis rocking the party.PDP has scheduled its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting for tomorrow in Gombe, the first to hold outside Abuja since the party was formed in 1998.
It was further gathered that in the event that the National Chairman of the party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, with members of the National Working Committee (NWC) refuse to postpone the convention, the BoT might suspend Sheriff from the party.
A member of the BOT, who spoke to New Telegraph on the condition of anonymity, stated that the party leaders were worried by what appears to be the strong force driving Sheriff ’s ambition to be the chairman until at least 2017, when a mid-term convention is expected to be held and a new order emerges in the party, preparatory to the 2019 election.
The source said that the decision of the BoT to meet was predicated on the fact that as the conscience of the party, members strongly believe that there was the need to sort some matters out before the convention could be held.He said: “We are going to try and talk to postpone the convention.
We believe that we can still talk and not scatter the party. Everybody is and should be concerned by his (Sheriff) ambition because he cannot be the chairman of the party until 2018 to midwife the presidential candidate of the party. He cannot be the midwife and also the child himself.
He has to choose one. If he wants to be chairman, it means that the presidential candidate will revert to the South. And the much I know, the north does not want that.” The NEC meeting will, among other things, adopt the amended constitution of the party before its ratification in the May 21 National Convention in Port Harcourt.
The NEC meeting was fixed for today, but later shifted to allow BoT adopt the constitution first before it goes to NEC. There are many issues in the amended version of the constitution, which the PDP founding fathers said offended the sensibility of party members.
One of these is the provision that the BoT should seek and obtain the permission of the national chairman before it could hold its meetings. Concerned PDP Leaers, led by former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, after its summit last week, condemned the attempt to amend the PDP constitution “in order to muzzle and control the BoT.”
Instead, it called for the strengthening of the board to function effectively as true conscience of the party A source at the PDP National Secretariat, however, said that there is little or nothing the BoT could do now to stop the Sheriff group from having its way.
“The BoT is not on the side of Sheriff, but there is nothing they can do now. Most of them are in Jerry Gana’s camp. “It is likely that when the new NWC comes, it will set up a new board, but it is not going to solve any problem.
Even the present BoT, if they don’t dissolve them, they will not definitely work with them,” he said. The source who said that “PDP is in serious problem,” said the NEC meeting is likely to formalise what the party leadership is doing.
“They will want to go ahead with the convention. Going ahead with the convention will not solve any problem. If it is a party that desires peace, what would have been done is to halt the convention and see how to have a meeting ground.
“Jerry Gana people may not be able to stop them legally, the Sheriff group is stronger, but they will weaken PDP seriously,” the source added. Just on Saturday in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, the North-East had, at its zonal congress, endorsed Sheriff as its consensus candidate.
A leader of the party, from the South-West, said that, that amounted to nothing. “Has he been endorsed by the North-West and North-Central? What of the South-East, South-West and South-South? Have they endorsed him too?
I believe that the man does not understand the thing he is playing with. Must he hold the PDP to ransom? There are other options available,” the party leader told New Telegraph.Last week, the elders of the party, led by a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, at a meeting in Abuja, announced the sacking of Sheriff and the NWC.
The elders further threatened to hold a parallel convention in the event that Sheriff and the NWC goes ahead with the May 21 convention. That position has sharply divided the party with supporters of the national chairman insisting on the convention.
It was gathered that some groups from the North, in conjunction with some aggrieved members from the South; South- West in particular, may go for a parallel convention, against the one that is expected to endorse Sheriff.
Two groups from the north, one led by a former Governor of Niger State, Dr. Mauzu Babangida Aliyu and another led by Gana met differently in Abuja. They came out with different positions, with the Gana-led Northern Elders specifically calling for the postponement of the convention until wounds are healed in the party. The Aliyu group also said that the zoning arrangement was incongruent with the principles of the PDP.
A source told New Telegraph that if the PDP failed to postpone the convention, it might just be the beginning of the end in the party. “Sheriff would have heeded wise counsel if he postpones the convention as advised by Gana. If not, it means there will be two conventions.
That is what the Gana group are pushing for,” the source said. In the face of the crisis rocking the PDP, members of the Senate and House of Representatives elected on the party’s platform will meet today in Abuja to deliberate on the division in the party.
A statement jointly signed yesterday by the Minority Leader of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio and his counterpart in the House, Leo Ogor, said that the meeting would hold at the House of Representatives’ complex.
According to the conveners, the sole agenda of the meeting would be the review of the state of the party against the backdrop of the forthcoming national convention of the party. Meanwhile, Sheriff has apologised to aggrieved stakeholders of the party over statements credited to him by his personal aides and associates.
Sheriff, who gave the apology at a media briefing in Jalingo yesterday, said, “As a well cultured and astute politician, I would never make any comment that would ridicule the party.” He added that it was not in his character to join issues with highly respected elders of the party, noting that he never authorised any of his aides or political associates to react to issues raised by aggrieved elders of the party.
Sheriff said that the aggrieved members of the party reserved the right to complain about issues affecting the party, which they considered inimical to the progress of the PDP. He, therefore, urged any aggrieved member to bury the hatchet and join hands with the present leadership to rebuild the party and restore the confidence of Nigerians in it.
He also noted that the PDP, as the main opposition party in the country, could not afford to have a divided house and appealed to members to work for the unity of the party at all times. He explained that the present leadership of the party was poised to lend a listening ear to all shades of opinions with a view to strengthening it to face the challenges ahead.
