- Rivers’ court rules on chairmanship
- Jerry Gana’s group splits over N37m largesse
The attention of leaders and members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will today focus towards Port Harcourt, Rivers State, as Justice Mohammed Liman of Federal High Court decides the party’s leadership between the seven-man caretaker committee headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi and the former National Chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff.
The leadership crisis in the party was worsened in May with two conflicting court orders, one from Port Harcourt and the other from Lagos, restraining Makarfi and Sheriff from parading themselves as chairman of PDP. The two suits were, on June 7, consolidated and Justice Liman will have the arduous task of deciding where the pendulum swings.
Specifically, the court will determine whether the May 21 National Convention in Port Harcourt that appointed Makarfiled National Caretaker Committee was in violation of May 12 order by Justice Ibrahim Buba of Lagos Federal High Court, which stopped PDP from conducting elections into the offices of the National Chairman, National Secretary and National Auditor.
It will also determine whether Sheriff and other former National Working Committee (NWC) members were validly removed from office by the national convention, having completed their four-year term. The two claimants to the PDP leadership, last week, secured victories at three different high courts in Abuja, but none, however, was a declarative judgement.
On Tuesday, Justice Valentine Ashi of Court 29, Abuja High Court, nullified the amendments to the PDP Constitution used to ratify Dr. Adamu Mu’Azu in the December 2014 Special National Convention on the basis of which Sheriff was appointed National Chairman by the PDP National Executive Committee (NEC). Though he did not mention Sheriff, Justice Ashi restrained individuals “currently parading themselves as the national officers of the PDP on the basis of the purported amendment to the PDP constitution effected at a special convention on December 10, 11, 2014.”
PDP amended Section 47, paragraph 6 of its constitution to reflect that where there is a vacancy, the acting chairman shall “serve the tenure of the officer”, who left before the expiration of the tenure. But Justice Ashi declared the amendment illegal because the party did not comply with Section 66(2)(3) of its constitution by failure to serve the national secretary with a written copy of the proposed amendment two months before the convention, which he was also required to circulate among the state party secretaries a month before the convention. The suit was filed by Joseph Jero, a PDP member from Irele Local Government Area of Ondo State, against PDP.
In the second judgement delivered on Thursday, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf of the FCT High Court struck out a suit filed by Sheriff seeking to recognise him as the authentic chairman of the PDP. The former National Chairman had included 17 other former NWC members in the suit. But the judge held that he did not seek the consent of some of the plaintiffs before joining them in the suit.
Sheriff, however, scored a victory in another court that same Thursday when Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja reaffirmed him as PDP National Chairman, and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept his nominees for Edo and Ondo governorship elections.
It is expected that today’s judgement in Port Harcourt would resolve the intractable leadership crisis. But, former National Vice Chairman (South-South), Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, is advocating for political solution to the crisis. Ojougboh who was appointed Acting Deputy National Chairman by Sheriff, foresees a situation where the court cases would continue till 2019. Meanwhile, a major crack was said to have occurred in the camp of PDP Concerned Stakeholders’ Forum led by former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana.
The forum, which held parallel national conventions in Abuja in protest over the planned election of Sheriff as chairman in Port Harcourt on May 21, is said to have been factionalised. A source in the party blamed the division on alleged N37 million largesse given to the group by a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The source was, however, not sure who collected the money among its leadership. Indication that all is not well with the group emerged when some members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) who stoutly opposed the choice of Sheriff as National Chairman, started to openly hobnobbing with him.
Among BoT members now in Sheriff’s camp are Dr. Maryam Ali, wife of former National Chairman of the party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali; and former chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Mrs. Esther Audu. Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, who is now Sheriff’s depu-ty, also attended the Abuja parallel convention, but his grouse might have been against Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.
Ojougboh, who had nursed the ambition of vying for Deputy National Chairman in the May 21 National Convention, had his ambition truncated when Wike insisted that Prince Uche Secondus would be returned at the convention.
He believes that his association with Sheriff will help him achieve this, and this he partially achieved with his recent appointment. The source further disclosed that other aggrieved Concerned Stakeholder members accuse Gana and former Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu of pursuing personal agendas.
Sheriff, two weeks ago, alleged that Makarfi and secretary of the caretaker committee, Senator Ben Obi, were meeting with APC chieftains, and had reserved the PDP presidential ticket in 2019 for him.
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