A clutch of former ministers, who served under the Peoples Democratic Party during the Jonathan Presidency have said they’d leave the party if current National Chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, returns to office on May 21.
The former ministers had a meeting in Abuja where the topic of zoning was an agenda and they considered preliminary reports from the zoning committee.
The ministers in various meetings, insisted that Sheriff should leave at the expiration of his tenure in May as stated by Mimiko.
Strategically, Sheriff was said to have appointed some of the former ministers into some of the committees like zoning, finance, convention and reconciliation with the aim of breaking their ranks.
According to the Punch, the debates conducted in the meeting over Sheriff were tough and had the ex-ministers divided. It was so bad that some ex-ministers stated that they would not sit in a meeting conducted by Sheriff.
One of the former ministers speaking to the Punch said: “It was so funny the way our colleagues were trying to defend the former governor despite the collective decision we took before.
“Some came to say we should give him the chance and that we should not be seen to be opposing him as a person.
“But it was gratifying to note that the majority of us have said there and then that we would leave the party for them. Our aprons are not tied to the PDP.
“We told them that Sheriff had always worked against his party. He worked for former President Olusegun Obasanjo; he worked for the late former President Umaru Ya’Adua; he worked for former President Goodluck Jonathan, who were all in our party.
“This was when Sheriff was in the opposition. Now, tell me: is there anything to suggest that he won’t work against us in 2019?”
He said rather than see reason with this, some of the former ex-ministers, who were said to have been promised structures in their states by Sheriff, said “it was because Sheriff loved the PDP, that was why he worked against his party in those years.”
Indications show that the forum might fail as controversy trails the decision to zone the PDP national chairmanship to the North-East. This has led the committee to suspend sitting until further notice.