PDP workers shun meeting with Sheriff

Staff of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have shunned an invitation for a meeting with a factional chairman of the party, Ali Sheriff.

The staff, who met under the auspices of the PDP Staff Welfare Forum on Monday in Abuja, said they decided to shun the meeting with Mr. Sheriff because, unlike, the other factional chairman, Ahmed Makarfi, he never called for the reopening of the secretariat complex.

The Police have sealed the Wadata Plaza secretariat of the PDP since May 22 last year following a parallel national convention that saw the party divided.

The party’s national officers led by former Borno Governor, Ali Sheriff, were sacked and an interim team announced in Port Harcourt on May 21, 2016.

The convention appointed former Kaduna Governor, Ahmed Makarfi, as chairman and a former senator, Ben Obi, as National Secretary.
Mr. Sheriff, however, insists he remains the national chairman.

A statement from the Welfare Committee said Monday’s meeting which had about 80 members of staff present “unanimously voted to reject the invitation by Senator Sheriff.”

They said they decided to reject the invitation because “while the National Caretaker Committee under the able leadership of Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, spoke in support of the call for the national secretariat of the party to be opened for Party activities, Senator Sheriff in a statement by his spokesman, Hon. Bernard Mikko rejected the call for the reopening of the National Secretariat which was seen by the staff as an affront to the progress and rebuilding process in the PDP”.


The staff also queried the yardstick for the invitation by Mr. Sheriff, accusing him of not working for the growth and development of the party.
The staff accused him of “tacitly working against the party, as seen in his activities that reduced the fortune of the PDP in the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Ondo states”.
The staff also queried the “deaf-silence by Senator Ali Modu Sheriff on various salient national issues especially the recklessness and misgovernance of the APC-led administration.”