Makarfi says Seriake Dickson’s committee report will worsen PDP crisis

National Caretaker Committee Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmed Mohammed, has said the report submitted to Ali Modu Sheriff and the proposed party convention by Reconciliation Committee Chairman and Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson was an ill wind that blows no good for the party.

Makarfi said for Dickson to pull out of the unanimous proposal drafted at a meeting of the 11 PDP governors with former President Goodluck Jonathan and to come up with a personal proposal he submitted to Sheriff’s group was a mischievous act that would further deepen the party’s crisis.

Besides, he also explained that although the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has released the timetable for the 2019 general elections, the PDP and All Progressives Congress (APC) would be engrossed with crisis that would threaten their unity before the polls.

He stated this in Kaduna at the weekend when he visited the Kaduna State Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), which was gutted by fire last Monday.

Makarfi said: “Just a week before Dickson submitted his report to Sheriff, the 11 PDP governors met with Jonathan and came out with a unanimous proposal on the way out of the crisis in the party. But he (Dickson) pulled out and made a personal proposal, which he presented to Sheriff.

“For us, the PDP crisis is not just about holding convention, they are about more fundamental issues. How do hold a convention if you don’t address the fundamental issues and achieve reconciliation? You have not talked about the problems and you are more concerned about a committee to organize convention. That means you will hold convention while the crisis is still on.”

He explained that Jonathan’s proposal and the 11 governors was presented to all parties including the Board of Trustees (BoT) Chairman and Modu Sheriff but argued that if anything was going to change, they should have gone back to Jonathan and the governors to discuss and review the responses from all parties to see if there was going to be any modification to the proposal.

He said it was wrong for Dickson who was a party to the unanimous proposal to come out with a personal proposal.

Makarfi noted that the way out of the PDP crisis was for all national officials to resign their positions, sign indemnity not to contest such resignation in court, then form a committee, consisting of members from both groups to organise a transparent convention, where there would be a level playing field for all parties.