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His group, he said, has submitted terms of possible agreement to end the crisis rocking the main opposition party.
The Sheriff’s group and the Caretaker Committee that was set up at the Port Harcourt convention have been battling for control of the party leading to several litigations.
Sheriff, who yesterday spoke through the Acting Deputy National Chairman, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh in Abuja, stated that the conditions for enduring peace in the party were being worked out by a group represented by the two warring factions.
He, however, chided the spokesman of the Makarfi–led caretaker committee, Prince Dayo Adeyeye for calling for the arrest of Sheriff, thus, accusing him of fueling the crisis through his utterances.
Ojougboh said: “I want to make this point clear, the caretaker committee led by Makarfi and Ali Modu Sheriff led-PDP have been discussing. We have been looking for ways to make peace. “People like Adeyeye, who want this crisis to continue, has been talking anyhow, they have their own personal agenda. I know that Makarfi will not make such statement, he is a gentleman and not somebody given to such utterances, so I want to excuse him.
“If such statement came from Makarfi, Ali Modu Sheriff would have know what to do, to address it properly. Because we know that he could not make such statement, it was Adeyeye that was quoted.”
Ojuogboh affirmed that Sheriff has court judgements, which declared him as the authentic chairman of the party and empower him as the chairman to submit names of candidates for the Edo and Ondo states governorship elections.
He noted that the judgment being celebrated by the Makarfi camp was bought by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, who he described as the “Ikwere Emperor’.
“The judgement they are celebrating in Port Harcourt, of course, is the judgement of Emperor of Ikwere. We have appealed it and we have also called for stay of execution. So it is neither here nor there.
“But the chairman of PDP, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff has some other subsisting judgements in his favour, and if anybody is to be arrested, it is Adeyeye who is making allusion that people should be arrested,” Ojuogboh said.
He declared that Sheriff wants to return the party to the people and not the governors, who would sit in their rooms and compile names of candidates to be submitted to INEC, stating that it was the bane of the crisis that even led to the party’s defeat in the 2015 general elections.
“Sheriff wants to return the party to the people. He doesn’t want only the governors to sit down in their rooms and write the names of candidates and submit. That is the root of the crisis we are having today in the PDP, and Ali Modu Sheriff is ready to address it.
“This is the only time the chairman of the PDP is saying no to the governors, impunity must be addressed, anybody who went shopping for judgment, or use state money to go and buy judgment, the person is only on his own.
“Ali Modu Sheriff will not be involved in such cases, and if you win such cases, we wait for you at the Appeal Court,” he warned.
Ojuogboh said political solution rather than court victory is the only way to broker enduring peace in the party and summarily end all the legal fireworks that can tear the party even wider apart.
He appealed to all disaffected members and stalwarts to sheathe their sword and embrace peace in the interest of the party ahead of the forthcoming and the 2019 general elections.
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