{"id":37813,"date":"2017-04-06T21:57:21","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T21:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2017-04-06T21:57:21","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T21:57:21","slug":"sheriff-walks-out-of-pdp-stakeholders-meeting-as-jonathan-heads-fresh-reconciliation-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=37813","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff walks out of PDP stakeholders\u2019 meeting as Jonathan heads fresh reconciliation committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
Former President, Goodluck Jonathan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBy www.premiumtimesng.com<\/strong>
\nThe Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Thursday walked out of the party\u2019s stakeholders meeting organised by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
\nMr. Sheriff, who got to the venue of the meeting a few minutes after Mr. Jonathan had delivered his remarks, walked out with members of his National Working Committee at about 4.15 p.m.
\nSome of the executive members with him were the Deputy National Chairman, Cairo Ojougboh; and the Publicity Secretary, Mikko Bernard.
\nMr. Sheriff, addressing journalists before leaving, expressed displeasure for not being allowed to make the opening remarks.
\n\u201cWe are here for PDP stakeholders meeting and the PDP has only one national chairman, which is Ali Modu Sheriff.
\n\u201cThere is no PDP meeting that will take place under whatever arrangement that I will not open the session as national chairman. Today, I\u2019m the most senior member of this party.\u201d
\nMr. Sheriff also said that he would not be party to anything outside the reconciliation report submitted to him by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa.
\n\u201cI think Governor Dickson made a proposal for reconciliation that we have accepted. Some people want to deviate from this programme, to bring agenda which was not part of it.
\n\u201cAs national chairman of the party, what I told you in my office when Dickson brought the report is the only thing that we have agreed to at this moment.
\n\u201cI will not be party to anybody using me to do another programme. I\u2019m not going to be part of it,\u201d Mr. Sheriff said.
\nAsked about the way forward for the party, Mr. Sheriff said: \u201cAs the National Chairman of PDP, I will move on with the programmes initiated by Gov. Dickson.
\n\u201cWe are continuing with that; anything outside that, I\u2019m not a party to it.\u201d
\nThe meeting, however, continued after Mr. Sheriff\u2019s walk-out.
\nMr. Jonathan, speaking on the outcome of the meeting, regretted what happened during the meeting.
\nAccording to him, the issues will be addressed once a committee set up comes out with its own recommendations.
\nMr. Jonathan said the committee was set up to find a political solution to the party\u2019s leadership crisis.
\nHe said the constitution of the committee was a major outcome of a stakeholders meeting of the party\u2019s members held on Thursday.
\nMr. Jonathan, who convened the meeting, said that the committee would be chaired by him and had two weeks to submit recommendations for consideration by the stakeholders.
\nHe said that in his absence, the committee would be chaired by former vice president, Namadi Sambo or former senate president, David Mark.
\nMr. Jonathan said that PDP leaders believed that various matters of the party before the courts would be resolved in the next few months but that the party would not surrender its powers entirely to the court.
\n\u201cWe will take some steps to make sure that we will keep our people together and work with all the interested parties to see how we can resolve this difference.\u2019\u2019
\nHe listed members of the committee as six from the Board of Trustees \u2013 one per geo-political zone as well as six each from the two groups within the party.
\nOthers members, according to him, are all PDP governors, Deputy President of the Senate, Senate Minority Leader, House of Representatives Minority Leader and Minority Whip.
\n\u201cWe will consult with both groups and take two former governors \u2013 one from the North and one from the South; two former ministers, two women, two youths \u2013 all will be one from the north and one from the South,\u2019\u2019 he added.
\nMr. Jonathan expressed optimism that when the committee met, minor issues experienced during the stakeholders meeting would be resolved.
\nBe assured that we are determined to restore our party, and to make sure that PDP becomes stronger and stronger. We are determined to ensure that PDP rises again,\u2019\u2019 he said.
\nEarlier at the opening of the meeting, Mr. Jonathan had urged PDP leaders to make personal and general sacrifices to ensure quick resolution of the party\u2019s problems.
\nHe described PDP as a symbol of democracy and said that there was no sacrifice too big for anybody who believed in the party to make.
\n\u201cAs politicians with the zeal to lead our people, we must aspire to higher offices or identify the people we believe have leadership qualities and encourage them to aspire to those positions.
\n\u201cBut one thing is very clear, you cannot, as the polity is configured today, be elected into a higher office on the platform of a weak party.
\n\u201cWe must all, therefore, work to rebuild the PDP and strengthen the party in line with the vision of our founding fathers,\u201d he said.
\nHe reminded the members that the prolongation of the party\u2019s crisis had cost them so much in election fortunes, in recent times.
\n\u201cThe loss of Edo and Ondo gubernatorial elections is still fresh in our memory.
\n\u201cIt goes without saying that we cannot afford to have a repeat of that in the forthcoming elections in Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states.\u2019\u2019
\nHe, therefore, said that it was high time the members buried their hatchet, suppressed their ego and prepared to make sacrifices in the interest of PDP and the country.
\n\u201cWe must realise that as they say, everybody is nobody without a platform. So, why destroy the platform?\u2019\u2019
\nThe Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Walid Jubrin, urged the party leaders to embrace strategies that would regain the party\u2019s lost glory.
\nWe must be able to bring ourselves together and forget our differences for the sake of the party. We must be ready to do away with selfish interests and ambitions.
\n\u201cWe must also forego blame game and be involved in forecast and formation and never abandoned PDP,\u201d Mr. Jubrin said.
\nA member of the party, who pleaded anonymity, said that Mr. Sheriff was not allowed to address the meeting because he insisted that the factional chairman of the caretaker committee, Ahmed Makarfi, should not be allowed to address the meeting.
\nBoth Messrs. Sheriff and Makarfi were scheduled, in the agenda of the meeting, to deliver goodwill messages.
\nPDP members present include Tom Ikimi, Prince Uche Secondus, Sen. Ahmed Makarfi, Olisa Metuh, Saminu Turaki, David Jang and Adolphus Wabara.
\nAlso present were some PDP governors, former ministers, and the BoT members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By www.premiumtimesng.com The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Thursday walked out of the party\u2019s stakeholders meeting organised by former President Goodluck Jonathan. Mr. Sheriff, who got to the venue of the meeting a few minutes after Mr. Jonathan had delivered his remarks, walked out with members of his National Working Committee at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}