PDP Crisis: Makarfi Steps Aside, Agrees To Work With Sheriff

In a rare, yet commendable move, the caretaker chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has agreed to step aside for Senator Ali Modu Sheriff to continue in office as national chairman of the party.
Makarfi was appointed by the PDP Governors Forum, National Assembly caucus of the party and other stakeholders to head a caretaker committee, pending the election of new officers for the party.
The appointment of the caretaker committee followed the dissolution of the Sheriff-led National Working Committee, a move that was resisted by the embattled national chairman.
Following last week’s formal handover of the Wadata Plaza National Secretariat of the PDP to the Makarfi-caretaker committee, Sheriff, who was reportedly out of the country at the time, stormed the opposition party’s headquarters along with his supporters to “takeover”.
The former Borno State governor brandished a court order affirming his authority as national chairman of the PDP.
Reacting to the development, Makarfi, a former governor of Kaduna State, told newsmen in Abuja on Tuesday that if he was fully briefed on details about the crisis in the party and the status of Sheriff, he would not have accepted to head the caretaker committee.
“If I knew that there was a court order empowering Sheriff as the Chairman, I would not have taken the position because my interest is to see that PDP did not disintegrate. If the court said Sheriff is our leader, we will all follow him”, he said.