A group within the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the Renaissance Group led by Dame Esther Uduehi has said that the party’s national chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff is the last joker of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC to destroy the party.
“The first Joker being the Aminu Tambuwal-led destruction of the party in the National Assembly, followed in quick succession by the massive defections by the former PDP Senators and ex-governors most of whom are now in the ruling All Progressives Congress at various levels of governance in the country”, the group stated.
Calling the embattled national chairman of the PDP “a controversial mole” ever witnessed in party politics destruction in Nigeria, the group supported earlier position of former Minister of Information and a founding member of the party, Jerry Gana, who led a group of other leading members to announce the takeover of the party from Sheriff last Tuesday in Abuja.
Particularly, the group regards the purported extension of the tenure of the Chairman and other members of the national working committee of the Party by its NEC an illegality quite untenable and contrary to the provisions of the PDP Constitution which gives such powers only to the National Convention of the Party.
The group also supported Professor Jerry Gana Stakeholders’ position that “all actions purportedly taken by the said NEC and the National Working Committee, including the Ward, Local Government, State Congresses and the planned National Convention of the Party slated for the 21st of May 2016 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State constitute a nullity and are of no effect”.
Consequently, the group maintains that zoning arrangement as announced by the chairman of the Zoning Committee, the Governor Emmanuel Udom of Akwa-Ibom State, is unacceptable, because it ran contrary to the PDP’s established principles and practice the pillar of the party’s sustained unity since its inception.
The Renaissance Group equally supports the PDP Rescue Group led by Wilberforce Juta, who had cried out in February that the party leaders were upset about Mr. Modu-Sheriff’s appointment as PDP national chairman; re-echoing that most PDP leaders and members in all the states of the federation did not see in Sheriff a model that the party badly needed to lead it at this critical moment.
Alerting all serving governors and legislators of the PDP on the need to do away with Sheriff before he finally destroys the party they and the founding fathers of the party had laboured to build to a giant in African politics, the group insists that with Sheriff in the saddle as they approach their national convention later this month, there might be no PDP let alone a viable platform for them to contest the 2019 elections.
According to the group, all PDP stakeholders and party members across the country must not be hoodwinked by statements of commitment to the goal of rebuilding the party which Sheriff and his image-makers have severally bandied in the media.
As the group stated, “No chairman of any political party in Nigerian history has been linked with a controversial past like Ex- Governor Ali Modu Sheriff.”
The group pointed out that Sheriff, who replaced Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu, ex- Bauchi State governor has been a controversial figure amid allegations that he founded, funded and sponsored the extremist sect, Boko Haram.
The PDP Renaissance Group is a burden to majority of PDP leaders and members across the nation vis-à-vis the party’s determination to bounce back into reckoning and send the APC back to opposition in 2019.
