Sheriff Threatens Disciplinary Action against Disloyal Staff
Dickson’s committee proposes June 30 for convention, says Sheriff should chair event
Onyebuchi Ezigbo
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has warned that any member of staff of the party that fails to heed his call to return to work may face disciplinary action.
The warning came as efforts to stem the raging crisis in the party saw the Standing Committee on Reconciliation headed by Bayelsa State Governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, yesterday submitting its report and recommending that a unity convention be held on June 30.
Sheriff whose warning came after the staff of the party had persistently rejected his overtures to drop their loyalty to the National Caretaker Committee led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, said the staff must remain apolitical and refrain from taking sides in the conflict.
A statement issued by the spokesman of the Sheriff leadership, Mr. Bernard Mikko, said: “Recent events and pronouncements of some members of staff under the guise of PDP Welfare Association have shown that they have breached their terms of employment and conditions of service and now engaging in the selection, determination and emergence of their bosses who are political leaders at the Wadata Plaza.”
Mikko, who described the Makarfi-led caretaker committee as a “dead dissident group,” said all staff should immediately get back to work as they are neither on trial nor involved in any crisis or litigation necessitating any form of political or legal solution to resolve.
“All staff of the PDP National Secretariat that have not resumed duties should immediately go back to work. This notice serves as another opportunity for the staff of the national secretariat to take advantage of the magnanimity of the leadership of Sheriff and resume duties in line with the press statement issued after the meeting of the National Working Committee,” he said.
Mikko warned that failure to heed the call by the leadership would attract disciplinary procedures.
He insisted that the current members of the NWC emerged through due process and established traditions in line with Article 47(6) of the PDP Constitution 2012 (As Amended).
“This is sequel to the voluntary resignation of some national officers of the party who have since collected their terminal benefits and deposed to an affidavit to that effect before the botched national convention in Port Harcourt on May 21, 2016.
“The belligerent stand and the series of communiques issued by some members of staff indicates clearly that they have positioned themselves in the center of political conflagrations involving their bosses against their terms and conditions of employment.
“The dissident group which they pretend to profess their loyalty had been proscribed by law and legally dead. Any attempt to resurrect a dead horse will only amount to superstition and largely futile. Sheriff and the entire NWC is committed to bringing the party to fame to the realisation of the dreams of the founding fathers and should be supported to do,” he said.
Meanwhile, the party’s Standing Committee on Reconciliation headed by Bayelsa State Governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, yesterday submitted its report, recommending that a unity convention be held on June 30.
In addition, the committee recommended the composition of a planning committee to include seven governors, seven senators, including the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekwerenmadu, 12 members of the representatives, six Board of Trustees members, former governors, national vice chairmen, three state chairmen per a zone and six Speakers of House of Assemblies.
Others members of the proposed convention committee are former presiding officers of the National Assembly (who are still members of the party), six prominent Women Leaders, six Youth Leaders of the party, six former ministers of the party, and 12 others to be nominated by the national chairman in consultation with stakeholders.
Among the template set by the reconciliation committee is that the convention committee shall be responsible for the conduct of the elections to all national offices of the party including the zoning of such offices.
As part of the sacrifice to be made in order to reposition the party, the committee said that all national officers who may claim that their tenure still subsists beyond the proposed convention are hereby requested to relinquish their claim In the interest of the party.
The committee report also proposes that for the purpose of the convention, all officers elected at the ward, local, state and zonal levels before the first Port Harcourt convention of May 21 of 2016 are deemed validly elected except for the election held in some states that were declared by NEC as inconclusive.