The Chairman, National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmed Makarfi, has rejected the template for the proposed national unity convention of the party.
The report submitted by the chairman, PDP Standing Committee on Reconciliation and Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, called for the national convention to hold not later than 30th June, 2017.
The governor had presented the committee’s template for the conduct of the national convention to Makarfi in privately on Tuesday, while the presentation of the same report was made to National Chairman of the party, Ali Modu Sheriff on the same day as witnessed by the media.
This development irked Makarfi who thought it was wrong to have placed the committee’s recommendation on the public domain when much work needed to be done to fine-tune it.
In a statement on Wednesday in Abuja, Makarfi said implementing the template the way it is at the moment, would go against the judgement of the Court of Appeal that ordered the feuding parties in the leadership crisis to revert to status quo ante before the botched May 21, 2016 national convention.
He said Dickson was supposed to have gone back to members of his committee to rectify areas that were in conflict with the court judgement but he (Dickson) failed to do so.
The former Kaduna State Governor said: “I’m shocked and disappointed that Governor of Bayelsa made public presentation of a purported report approved or endorsed by us and other stakeholders as reported.
“He met me yesterday (Tuesday) and I pointed out the problems with his proposals, that it will go against even the Court of Appeal Judgement.
“At the end, I told him, as Caretaker Committee, whatever is approved by the organs of the Party that we represent, we will work with and advised him to revert back to his colleagues and other organs. But this is what we are seeing.”
Meanwhile, PDP senators have said they would have to meet with PDP Governors before they honour an invitation extended to them by Sheriff.
Briefing newsmen at the end of a closed door meeting on Wednesday, Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, confirmed receipt of a letter from Sheriff inviting the caucus to a meeting with him at the party headquarters.
The letter was dated March 6, 2017.
Akpabio said in looking for a political solution to problems within the party, the PDP Senate Caucus would first meet PDP Governors.
He said the caucus would also meet with other organs of the party as well as the Ahmed Markafi-led Caretaker Committee before it would honour the invitation from the National Chairman.
Recall that a member of the caucus representing Bayelsa East in the National Assembly, Ben Murray-Bruce, pledged allegiance to Sheriff, immediately after the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt declared him as the authentic leader of the party.
