The embattled national chairman of the PDP, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, yesterday gave conditions for truce, including a call for Senator Ahmed Makarfi and members of the national caretaker committee to resign immediately.
Sheriff who described the committee as illegal, said he was elected by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), adding that the crisis within the party would continue if the caretaker committee was not dissolved.
Addressing a delegation of PDP stalwarts from Abia State, who paid him a visit in Abuja, Sheriff listed other conditions for peace in the PDP to include holding fresh national convention in Abuja and not in Port Harcourt.
The Makarfi led committee had slated August 17 for the Port Harcourt convention.
He also said stakeholders of the party should tell Makarfi to nominate 10 people that would work closely with 10 others that would be nominated by him, to form the convention committee.
The former Borno State governor said he was approached for reconciliation by governors Darius Ishaku of Taraba and Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State, which he accepted.
He added that his conditions for a unified party were based on the agreement reached at a reconciliation meeting under the chairmanship of Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, who was deputised by a former Senate president, Ibrahim Mantu.
Sheriff, flanked by his deputy, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, a former governor of Imo State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim and a new entrant into the group, Barr. Jimoh Ibrahim, as well as Senator Hope Uzodimma, noted that unless the conditions he gave were accepted, he would remain the national chairman of the party till 2018.
“The Makarfi committee should resign because there is nothing like that in the PDP constitution; what exists is the national chairman which I am. Some people want to make PDP their personal property, that will not happen; if you don’t stand on the truth, the end result will be destruction,” he said.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday interrogated former Governor of Akwa Ibom State Godswill Akpabio over allegation of financial crimes. Daily Trust gathered that Akpabio honoured the invitation by the anti-graft agency to explain allegations of looting of the state’s funds during his tenure. Sources told our correspondent that Senator Akpabio was being interrogated late yesterday evening at the Abuja head offices of the Commission. He was spotted at the EFFC office in company of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Rickey Tarfa, at about 5:20pm. Akpabio’s arrest yesterday is fallout of the petition by an Abuja-based lawyer and activist, Leo Ekpenyong, who had on June 8 this year petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari and the EFCC, calling for Senator Akpabio’s probe and accusing him of looting. The petitioner had earlier on Wednesday adopted his petition and provided more details to the anti-graft agency on the allegations against the minority leader of People...
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