Senators of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) resolved,
on Wednesday, to hold a crucial meeting with elected governors on the platform
of the party to conclude the planned out-of-court settlement to resolve the
crisis rocking the party.
The lawmakers, who met in the National Assembly on
Wednesday, said they would meet with the governors before meeting Senator Ali
Modu-Sheriff, who had invited the caucus.
Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who
addressed Senate correspondents, said that the PDP senators decided to meet
with the governors before honouring an invitation sent to them by Sheriff.
He said that the meeting with the governors would ensure
that wrong motives are not read to the planned meeting with Sheriff.
He said that the meeting with the governors would ensure
that wrong motives are not read to the planned meeting with Sheriff.
He said that the caucus, aside considering it very
necessary to get the governors informed about the invitation from Sheriff, also
felt that doing so would provide the needed opportunity for both the caucus and
the governors to meet on the possible out-of-court settlement of the leadership
crisis rocking the party.
According to Akpabio: “We held this meeting because there
was a letter from Sheriff to the caucus and so, we had to meet first to
know whether this is the right time, whether the meeting is right or not and
what we agreed is that let the leadership of the party know first, thereafter
we will meet with the Sheriff group, then the Makarfi group and after that, the
BOT.
We are taking these steps to avoid being seen as taking side.
“We also said if it is possible that while the judicial
processes are on, that as a caucus, we should also pursue the alternative
platform of having out-of-court settlement and this can only start with us
meeting with our governors and thereafter meeting with leadership of the party,
the two groups and all the other strata of the party, that is the Board of
Trustees, former governors, the National Assembly members and of course the
National Caretaker Committee, the recently pronounced Chairman by the Court of
Appeal so that we can spearhead a major political turnaround that will involve
the whole stakeholders and bring holistic peace to the party.
“If we succeed in doing so, this could even be a major
way out instead of continuous processes in court.
We will pursue that option without prejudice to the
ongoing court processes until we can arrive at a solution where we could at the
end of the day use what we have with the totality of all agreeing as consent
judgment.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the National Caretaker
Committee of the PDP, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has rejected the template for the
proposed national unity convention of the party.
The template was submitted to him on Tuesday by the
chairman of the party’s Standing Committee on Reconciliation, Governor Seriake
Dickson.
The Bayelsa State governor presented his committee’s
template for the conduct of the national convention to Makarfi in private, on
Tuesday, but the presentation of same report to the National chairman, Senator
Ali-Modu Sheriff, on the same day, was witnessed by the media.
That has apparently riled the factional chairman who
thought it was wrong to have placed the committee’s recommendation on the
public domain when much work remained to be done to refine it.
Makarfi told the Nigeria Tribune in Abuja, on Wednesday,
that implementing the template the way it is would go against the judgment of
the Court of Appeal that ordered the feuding parties in the leadership crisis
to revert to the status quo ante before the botched May 21, 2016 national
convention.
He said Dickson was supposed to have gone back to members
of his committee to rectify areas that were in conflict with the court
judgment.
The former Kaduna State governor said: “I’m shocked and
disappointed that Bayelsa State governor made public presentation of a
purported report approved or endorsed by us and other stakeholders as reported.
“He met me yesterday (Tuesday) and I pointed out the
problems with his proposals that go against the Court of Appeal judgment.
“At the end, I told him that whatever is approved by the
organs of the party that we represent, we will work with. I advised him to
revert back to his colleagues and other organs. But this is what we are
seeing.”
The template released by the committee called for the
formation of a national convention committee that would conduct a national
unity convention.
According to the template, Sheriff is expected to select,
in consultation with party stakeholders, 12 members of the national convention
planning committee.
The standing committee had also urged the national
convention planning committee to consider appointing into the planning
committee, seven state governors, seven senators including the Deputy Senate
President, 12 members of the House of Representatives and six members of the
Board of Trustees.
Also to be considered for membership of the convention
planning committee, according to Dickson, are national vice chairmen (one per
zone), three state chairmen per zone, six serving speakers of the state Houses
of Assembly and six former governors.
Others suggested for inclusion are six former presiding
officers of the National Assembly (who are still members of the party), six
prominent women leaders, six youth leaders of the party and six former
ministers of the party.
Senator Makarfi had also rejected insinuation that he has
accepted to step down as a prelude to the resolution of the leadership crisis
in the party.
He said, on Wednesday, in a statement signed by his
spokesman, Mukhtar Sirajo, in Abuja, that he had never offered to resign from
his position as the chairman of the National Caretaker Committee of PDP.
Makarfi, however, noted that he and the caretaker
committee were committed to reconciliation in the party and was prepared to
accept a comprehensive reconciliation programme that would ensure a level
playing field.
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