Over the weekend, the party had held parallel national Conventions in Abuja and Port Harcourt, with the former convention electing Senator Ibrahim Mantu as interim chairman, while the latter electing former Kaduna State governor, Senator Ahmed Makarfi as its caretaker committee chairman.
Mobile and regular policemen who sealed off the national secretariat of the party, though did not disclose on whose orders the action was undertaken, however, stated that nobody was allowed entry.
“The Commissioner of Police asked us to seal off the PDP headquarters and allow entry to only staff members. By Monday (today), the picture will become clearer on which faction actually gave the order. But for now, we are acting on instructions that none of the factions should be allowed entry,” a source said.
Modu Sheriff, Sunday, insisted that he remained the national chairman of the party, describing the events at the convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, as null and void.
Sheriff, who spoke through his media aide, Inuwa Bwala, stated that he and other members of the National Working Committee (NWC) were being briefed by their lawyers and would head to court over the logjam in the party.
Meanwhile, Rivers State governor and chairman, National Convention Planning Committee of the PDP, Chief Nyesom Wike, explained that the party had to cast Sheriff aside because his leadership was destabilising the party.
Wike, who disclosed this while speaking to Government House correspondents on Saturday night, said, “All along, the crisis has been about the former acting chairman whose emergence was strongly opposed.
“This is destabilising the party and so we had to let him go. What is important is the party and not the individual. No sacrifice is too much for anyone to make as far as PDP is concerned.”
The governor noted that he had no personal interest in supporting Sheriff as he (Sheriff) was the best option at the time he emerged.
“We will not allow the PDP to die or suffer divisions under our watch. History will never forgive us if we watch the party die,” he stated, adding that the party leaders would work towards maintaining unity amongst all members of the party.
He insisted that, despite the challenges, the 2016 National Convention was successful as the party had been repositioned in the interest of the nation.
Narrating what transpired in Port Harcourt, Bwala said Sheriff explained to the governors that he had been served four conflicting court orders over the national convention and that he would not want to run foul of the court orders, hence the need to suspend the convention.
He added that all the cases subsisted by Friday and there was no court sitting on Saturday.
He added that Sheriff met with the NWC and the BoT after meeting with the governors and that they gave him the nod to suspend the convention because of the court orders.
“The national chairman told them that court orders had been served on him and that most of the orders were contradictory. If he goes ahead he would fall foul of the court. He told the governors that if he had to go ahead, they would be running foul of court ruling, but they already had a set agenda. Their personal interests took the better of them against the law.
“The national chairman went back to the NWC, which is the statutory body to convene National Convention over his meeting with the governors; they asked him to go ahead. So he called a press conference and announced that the convention had been postponed until the court issues are sorted out. Members of BoT and NWC left the convention ground, except Uche Secondus. He was the only NWC member there.”
Bwala accused Uche Secondus of dropping the name of national chairman over the presiding of the convention.
Speaking on the Sen. Makarfi committee, he said: “Caretaker committee has no place in the law. What happened in Port Harcourt is a nullity,” adding that they had invited their lawyers to commence action today.
“We will go and vacate the court processes. When that happens, we will go ahead with the convention,” he concluded.
