Sheriff contracted by APC to destabilise PDP, says Makarfi’s committee

The Senator Ahmed Makarfiled National Caretaker Committee of the crisis ridden Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Tuesday’s reacted to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff’s Monday’s forceful takeover of party’s leadership with a declaration that he (Sheriff) is acting the script of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) to destabilise the party. The PDP caretaker committee specifically alleged that Sheriff has been contracted by the APC for this purpose.

The committee made the allegation, just as it became known that the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party, its elected Governors and its caucus in the National Assembly will meet today over the developments in the party. The Director General of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Osaro Onaiwu, who confirmed this in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, said the purpose of the meeting is to find a lasting solution to the crisis bedeviling the party. He, however, added that Senator Ali Modu Sheriff was not invited to the meeting.

The Makarfi caretaker committee claimed that it has “credible intelligence report” about a meeting last Sunday night meeting between Sheriff and an un-named APC governor from North West where it was agreed “to give full security and financial support” to the embattled former Chairman (Sheriff) to exacerbate the crisis in the PDP. The primary objective of the whole scenario, the Committee said, was to prevent PDP from presenting a candidate for the Edo governorship elections, or in the very least to prevent the PDP from offering a serious challenge to APC. It will be recalled that embattled Senator Sheriff and people suspected to be thugs had on Monday stormed the PDP National Secretariat where he reclaimed the chairmanship position of the party.

However, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, a member of the caretaker committee in charge of publicity, while addressing Journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, said Sheriff and his supporters were being used by the enemies of the PDP to destroy the party and to prevent it from reorganizing itself in order to provide a credible opposition and alternative platform for the forthcoming Edo State gubernatorial election and 2019 elections. Prince Adeyeye, a former Minister of State for Works under the last administration, said, “While we are still trying to understand the role of the police in the entire saga, it is curious that the police made no arrest of the thugs who openly brandished various dangerous weapons in and around the premises of the secretariat in full glare ofue police.