The emergence of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the People’s Democratic Party National Chairman is obviously not going down well with members of the party who have expressed their reservations at different fora.
His choice may have also split the PDP Senators numbering no fewer than 20 from the South-East and South-South zones who are adamant to reject his chairmanship and have threatened to dump the party.
According to reports no fewer than 50 members of the House have also commenced talks on the way forward.
It was gathered that of the 32 PDP senators from the South-East and South-South geopolitical zones, no fewer than 20 had indicated their decision to leave the party to join the All Progressives Congress (APC) or the Labour Party.
No fewer than 50 members of the House of Representatives across the geopolitical zones were also said to have indicated interest in defecting to another party from the PDP.
“The Tsunami that will hit the PDP as a result of this decision will be unimaginable. We have some 20 senators already looking to the door right now. The number of members of the House is around 50. Let’s see how the party can survive that,” a source close to the party said.
The PDP currently has 47 of the 109 senators and 141 of 360 members of the House of Representatives.
It was gathered that the decision to field Sheriff as national chairman came from the party’s governors who were able to pull through their decision, forcing it on the national caucus, the National Executive Committee (NEC) and overriding the Board of Trustees (BoT).
It was gathered that the plot to name Sheriff was kick-started on February 14, during the inauguration of the Bayelsa State governor, Mr Seriake Dickson for a second term in office where a number of governors who attended the event kicked off the discussion about Sheriff and reached out to their colleagues across the country.
It was confirmed that after firming up their decision to back Sheriff, the governors ensured that the Abuja meetings of the BoT, national caucus and NEC were unable to upturn the decision.
It was learnt that the six zonal chairmen of the party, the state chairmen and other stakeholders, including the National Assembly, voted against the choice of Sheriff, but the governors put their feet down.
A source said former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Madueke, actually walked out of the NEC when it became obvious that Sheriff was being imposed on the party.
But the governors were said to have kicked off peace moves from Tuesday night, with the aim of calming frayed nerves and ensuring a united party.
It was learnt that Sheriff was asked to attend the thanksgiving for Abia State governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, held on Wednesday.
Sheriff attended the thanksgiving service as his first official assignment during which he went round to shake hands with many of the party’s stalwarts at the event.