PDP: Sheriff/ Makarfi ‘peace pact’ suffers setback

A few days after the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff and the party’s national caretaker committee chairman, Sen. Ahmed Makarfi, signed a peace pact, the former has warned the latter to steer clear of the party’s affairs.

Sheriff, in a statement yesterday by his deputy, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, warned Makarfi and his group to stop interfering in the affairs of the party.

He also cautioned the media against referring to the Makarfiled caretaker committee as a faction within the PDP.

Sheriff argued that the appeal filed at the Supreme Court by the Makarfi group was not a stay of execution, insisting that the caretaker committee was an illegal entity and must be done away with.

He also gave seven days ultimatum to the party’s secretariat staff loyal to the Makarfi-led caretaker committee, who are still in possession of the party’s property, to return them or face

The All Progressives Congress (APC) says it will not shield its members who are found wanting of graft allegations.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, who said this at the weekend in an interview with journalists in Abuja, was reacting to concerns expressed by members of the APC Caucus in the House of Representatives at a meeting last Thursday with the party. They had alleged that the Chief Odigie-Oyegunled National Working Committee (NWC) legal action.

He explained that he advertised job vacancies at the party’s national headquarters through the party’s national secretary, Prof. Wale Oladipo, last week, because the staff in question had refused to resume work at the secretariat after several appeals.

“Makarfi should behave himself; he should not interfere in our business because we are not interested in his private business; any further careless statement from him will force us to reconsider our earlier peace agreement.

“We have already employed staff who are running the bureaucracy efficiently. If Makarfi so desires, he should keep the old staff, just as he is doing now. We have had enough and enough is enough of this,” he said.

The peace pact that was brokered by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State as chairman of the PDP National Reconciliation Committee had stated that all actors in the crisis should desist from making derogatory, inflammatory and divisive statements.