Governors, leaders and other members of the Peoples Democratic Party have resolved to snub the factional National Chairman of the party, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff, as they resolved to go ahead with the party’s national convention.
The convention holds in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, August 17.
The decision of the governors followed their inability and that of the Board of Trustees to pacify Sheriff to support the holding of the convention as scheduled.
The BoT and the governors had tried in vain to reconcile the Sheriff group with the party’s mainstream.
Indications that the peace moves had failed emerged at the meeting of the PDP Northern Leaders Forum where both Prof. Jerry Gana and Senator Ibrahim Mantu, told the delegates that the convention would hold as planned.
Both men said that the party had concluded all plans to host the event, and that nothing will stop it.
Gana is the chairman of the BoT Reconciliation Committee that had met with the Sheriff faction on a number of occasions.
The former minister of information is also the co-convener of the Northern Leaders Forum.
Mantu, a former Deputy President of the Senate, is also a member of the BoT Reconciliation Committee.
The meeting of the PDP Northern Leader Forum, where both men spoke, was called to discuss issues relating to the planned convention and how the general interest of the northern region will be protected at the event.
In order not to be caught unaware, the northern leaders meeting set up a special screening committee to look at the qualifications of all aspirants to various offices convention, and recommend to the region, aspirants to be adopted for the various offices.
But the Chairman of the BoT, Sen. Walid Jibrin, insisted that the convention would hold with or without the support of the Sheriff faction,
He said, “The national convention of the PDP scheduled for the 17th of August will hold.
“I hereby encourage all our delegates from the Northern part of Nigeria to be in Port Harcourt. In fact, our next meeting will be in Port Harcourt before the convention begins.
The committee headed by Mantu is expected to submit its report on Tuesday, in Port-Harcourt to the northern leaders for consideration.
Those in the race are Chief Olabode George, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, Prof. Tahoeed Adedoja and Chief Raymond Dokpesi.
All the aspirants are from the South-West where the office was zoned, while only Dokpesi is from the South-South.
Meanwhile, The BoT Reconciliation Committee has recommended that all court cases instituted by the members of the Peoples Democratic Party must be withdrawn immediately.
The Chairman of the committee, Prof. Jery Gana, stated this while submitting the report of his committee to the Chairman of the BoT, Sen. Walid Jibrin in Abuja on Saturday.
He said, “We believe that court cases are not good for our democracy. Every little thing is taking to the law courts.
“We have recommended that we should not run to the law courts at the slightest problem. We have recommended that all cases be withdrawn so that democracy is not truncated. Political issues should have political solutions.”
He said that his committee gave special attention to the factional National Chairman of the parrty, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff and his associates during its sittings.
Meanwhile the Independent National Electoral Commission has expressed readiness for the national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party scheduled to hold on August 17 (Wednesday).
The Director of Voter Education and Publicity, INEC, Mr. Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, in a telephone interview with Inner room , said the commission had deployed teams of electoral workers to observe the exercise.
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