How Division Among PDP Governors is Fueling Party’s Crisis

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

  The crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party has lingered because of indecision and irreconcilable differences among the governors elected on the party’s platform, who form the most influential bloc in the party, THISDAY has learnt. The 10 PDP governors are its main financiers and they generally call the shots. But the governors have gradually lost cohesion since the party’s leadership tussle, which broke out at the botched national convention in Port Harcourt on May 21 last year. The governors, however, remain members of the PDP Governors’ Forum headed by Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose.

Similarly, the PDP National Assembly caucus led by Deputy Senate President Ike Ekwerenmadu appears to have given up hope of a political solution to the crisis in the party.

THISDAY reliably gathered that the uncooperative attitude of the warring parties towards the recent peace initiative brokered by former President Goodluck Jonathan had displeased many of the legislators. Sources in the party said the legislators were particularly offended by the decision of the national chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, to walk out on the leaders of the party during a peace meeting.

“The legislators are not happy that the matter has dragged for a long time and that effort at arriving at mutually acceptable solution is not sight,” the source said.

It was learnt that protracted dispute had divided the PDP governors, making it difficult for them to hold meetings where common positions can be canvassed. Since the return of mutual brickbat between the PDP factions following the February 17 ruling of the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt Division, which restored Sheriff to office, the governors have not met to deliberate on the crisis. An aide to one of the governors told THISDAY yesterday that the governors had not met as a body, except on February 28, when they held a meeting with Jonathan at his Abuja residence. According to the source, the reason for the lack of solidarity among the governors is their divided loyalty to Senator Ahmed Makarfi and Sheriff.

Makarfi had been appointed at the Port Harcourt convention to head a national caretaker committee chosen to lead the party until the election of substantive officers. With the exception of Bayelsa State Governor Dickson, chair of the party’s peace committee, who has expressed his preference for the party to move ahead with the convention under the leadership of Sheriff because of his recognition by the Court of Appeal, and Governors Fayose and Nyesom Wike, who have been vehement in their opposition to Sheriff because of their believe that he is a mole in the party, other PDP governors have not made their stand conspicuous for fear of falling on the wrong side should the leadership of the party go either way.

The source said, “Most of the governors are in support of the unity convention because it doesn’t make sense for someone to say if it is Sheriff, nothing. Today you are saying you cannot work with Sheriff, meanwhile you were the ones who brought him.

“The reasonable thing to do is to follow the position of the law and to proceed with the convention because if the Supreme Court says it is Makarfi, we will go for convention and if it says it is Sheriff, the party will still go for convention.

“So why do we wait for the court before we do any of those things. Some people are presently not speaking the language of politics or how can someone say it is over my dead body for Sheriff to be recognised as chairman of PDP. The reasonable thing to do is wear our thinking cap and apply wisdom in order to ease Sheriff out of the way.”

Apart from Fayose and Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, who have openly opposed the appeal court’s recognition of Sheriff and backed the appeal of the judgement at the Supreme Court by the national caretaker committee, no other governor has come out to state his position. Some of the governors are said to be maintaining a strategic neutrality to watch and see where the pendulum would swing at the apex court.

But sources close to some of the PDP governors believe it does not exactly help matters when Fayose, the leader of the governors’ forum, has openly declared support for one of the parties in the PDP crisis. The Ekiti State governor is a fierce supporter and defender of Makarfi. Having shown bias, many of the governors think that the forum may be incapable of producing a generally acceptable solution.

Fayose may be seen as speaking on behalf of the PDP governors, being the chairman of the PDP Governors Forum. But Sheriff has described the Ekiti State governor as acting alone. Sheriff’s deputy, Cairo Ojougboh, has also gone further to claim that with the exception of Wike and Fayose, other PDP governors were in support of the former Borno State governor’s leadership of the party.

Ojougboh said having made extensive consultations with party stakeholders, the Sheriff leadership was poised to hold the national convention beginning with the meeting of the National Executive Committee on May 3.

This claim by Sheriff’s faction has not been denied by any of the affected governors, though spokesman of the national caretaker committee, Dayo Adeyeye, has refuted the claim that PDP governors were in support of Sheriff.

Adeyeye said in a statement that contrary to the claim by Ojougboh, the PDP governors were intact and solidly behind the Makarfi leadership.

Sheriff has visited some PDP governors from the South-east and South-south.

But Adeyeye said the attempt to persuade the PDP governors would be fruitless. He also condemned the planned NEC meeting. “We wish to inform our leaders, members and teeming supporters that the purported NEC meeting being summoned by Senator Sheriff’s led non-existent NWC on the 3rd of May, 2017 is a total fraud politically and legally,” he said.