Makarfi wants me to leave so he can destroy PDP – Sheriff

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has said that the Appeal Court rejected Caretaker Committee chairman, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, will destroy the party should he hearken to his group’s suggestion and resign as the party boss.

Sheriff therefore vowed not to resign and promised to assiduously work to restore the lost glory of the once acclaimed most populous party in the black continent.

The crisis ridden party chairman stated this on Friday when he entertained questions from newsmen in Agbor, Delta State, as soon as he was done with a breakfast meeting with the party national deputy chairman, Dr Cairo Ojougboh.

“I can’t resign. I want the PDP to be at peace, but the very man who is talking of resignation today, if I resign will it not be so that he can destroy the PDP? There is no aircraft without a pilot. There is no ship without a captain. Anybody who tells the captain of a ship to go down wants the ship to capsize. We don’t want PDP to capsize. PDP will always get their leaders through a democratic electioneering process.

“Anybody or persons you see kicking against the party machinery are agents of distraction and destruction; they have an agenda which they are now letting Nigerians know. Their agenda is not to build, it is something different. This party belongs to us.

Majority of our party men around the country felt the need for us to come together to be reunited back to the ideals of 1999. So we set up a National Executive Council (NEC) to review our situation before the party went to the Port-Harcourt convention.

Read also: There’ll be no PDP if Supreme Court upholds Sheriff’s chairmanship –Makarfi

“It was the NEC of the party that set up the National Working Committee (NWC). If it can set up committee under my leadership and if the NEC makes a recommendation to bring solution to our party, why should I reject it? And the working committee of my party totally accepted the road maps that Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson took. I am here to bring solution to the party’s problems. I am not here to destroy the party.”

“Why the PDP lost the election to All Progressives Congress (APC) at the central in 2015 was because of the impunity that I am fighting today. I am working to cancel impunity from the party. We want the people’s choices to man the offices not the candidates brought by Ali Modu Sheriff.”

The crisis rocking the party which held sway in the running of Nigeria for 16 uninterrupted years has got to a seeming breaking point.

Already, Senator Makarfi, who is being fingered to be forming a new party and pulling his group out, hinted during the week that except the Supreme Court reverses the Port Harcourt Appeal Court ruling that authenticated Sheriff as the party chairman, there may no longer be PDP as presently known.

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