The national leadership of the People’s Democratic Party has denied media reports that the chairman of the National Caretaker Committee (NCC), Sen Ahmed Makarfi, has a presidential ambition in 2019.
It was gathered that some party stakeholders seem to be displeased with what they consider moves to impose a candidate as national chairman at the December 9 national convention.
It was noted that the aggrieved party members are miffed over moves by some governors to force a candidate on the party, much like they did with the recently sacked national chairman of the party, Sen Ali Modu Sheriff.
Meanwhile, the national caretaker committee of the party also denied taking nominations from any aspirant to serve as members in committees for ward congress as alleged by some other aspirants.
National publicity secretary of the PDP , Prince Dayo Adeyeye, while briefing the press yesterday denied that the national caretaker committee took nominations from any aspirant to serve as members in committees for ward congress.
Two chairmanship aspirants, former minister of education Prof Tunde Adeniran and former deputy national chairman of PDP, Chief Bode George, had accused the Makarfi-led PDP of bias against former acting national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus.
Similarly, the Senator representing Ogun East senatorial district, Buruji Kashamu, also accused Makarfi of being bias in the conduct of the forthcoming congress because of his 2019 presidential ambition.
Reacting to the alleged presidential ambition of Makarfi, Adeyeye said, “As for the issue of whether Senator Makarfi has presidential ambition or not, we are not aware of that. The national caretaker committee is not aware of that and we have not opened the floodgate for people to begin to aspire for position of the president. INEC has not even released timetable.
“I don’t know if they have released any timetable for the presidential election. We in the PDP are concerned now about putting in place a new leadership for the party, which we hope, will come up or emerge latest by December 9 or 10. That is our preoccupation at the national caretaker committee”.
He further denied that the membership of committees supervising the congresses in respective states were nominations from aspirants.
Noting that the committee was constituted from states and other organs of the party, he said, “We wish to remind all that it’s the state chapters that actually conduct congresses. The committees only compile the results and attend to appeals after which they file their reports to the party headquarters.
“When all reports are filed by the committees, we shall summon the states chairmen to come with their copies and reconfirm the results at a date to be fixed and all bonafide interest groups will be welcomed to witness it. This is to reassure everybody that validly elected delegates list is not tampered with.
“Commenting specifically on the issues raised by Chief Bode George through his Director-General and Prof. Tunde Adeniran, we wish to state that Chief Bode George assertions were wild and not specific”.
Adeyeye continued: “However, Prof. Adeniran’s letter specifically mentioned 5 names out of about 216 names. While assuring him that we shall pay special attention to the places they were posted to, we did not and could not interview the members to know their linings before calling on them to serve. It is most likely that some of the remaining 211 members are aligned to some other persons seeking elective offices, including himself and Chief Bode George.
“It pains us that on the one hand Chief Bode George, who is fully aware of the pains we are still going through in Lagos in order to fairly and equitably carry everybody on board to the extent that we are been accused by others as siding with him, is the same person accusing us of impunity.
“On the preparations for the convention, we have asked chairmanship aspirants to make input so that they have their eyes and ears in each committee. It was only Chief Bode George that did not attend the meeting we had with the aspirants”.
The PDP spokesman added that the party’s leadership cannot enforce the peace accord entered into by the national chairmanship aspirants.
He, however, expressed frustration over the party’s inability to further sanction Sen Kashamu over the recent spate of remarks he has made against the leadership of the party.
Dispelling insinuations that Kashamu is bigger than the party, Adeyeye wondered how the lawmaker secured a court injunction stopping the party from disciplining him.
He said, “Kashamu is not bigger than the party. The party will take a decision at the appropriate time on sen Kashamu. It may take long but justice will be done”.
On why they lost Anambra State, the PDP spokesman lamented: “We do agree that the Anambra issue is a self-inflicted injury which has been with the state since after the 2003 general elections.
“Irrespective of the perfections or imperfections of our party primaries and the outcome, PDP Anambrarians had developed conflicting mindsets. We did our best to bring all under one caretaker committee hoping that things will work out well.
“Here, we need to remind PDP members and Nigerians that it was Sen. Kashamu and those he was bankrolling that conducted parallel congresses in Edo and Ondo States. They did not stop there but took us up to Supreme Court and in the end openly endorsed and campaigned for our opponents. Their actions made us to lose the elections.