THE crisis confronting the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP deepened yesterday after another of the eight national chairmanship contenders expressed lack of confidence in the actions of the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee, NCC, which it described as favouring a South-South candidate.
The allegation was made by Chief Bode George, the erstwhile deputy national chairman of the party. The call came a day after Prof. Tunde Adeniran, another South-west candidate accused Makarfi of partisanship towards Prince Uche Secondus from Rivers State.
George, however, did not mention any name. Secondus and the media mogul, Chief Raymond Dokpesi are the only candidates in the contest for national chairman from the South-South.
George, speaking through the Director-General of the Bode George Campaign Organization, BGCO, Alhaji Ibrahim Aliu, called on Makarfi to resign accusing him of attempting to skew the December 9 congress of the party in favour of a South-South aspirant.
Reacting to the allegation, Makarfi toldVanguard yesterday evening:
“He is entitled to his opinion.”
Alhaji Aliu said Makarfi could no longer be allowed to pilot the affairs of the party because “he is already tarred and soiled in the muddy waters of partisan prejudice.”
The BGCO Director-General, who accused the PDP chairman of nursing a personal ambition of contesting for the Presidential office in 2019, said Makarfi could no longer play the role of a neutral arbiter.
In a statement, Aliu said: “It is increasingly disturbing and rather untidy the role Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Chairman of the PDP Caretaker Committee is presently playing in the processes towards the party national convention on December 9, this year.
“Apparently spurred by personal ambition of contesting for the Presidential office in 2019, Makarfi is brazenly allying with a particular aspirant in the South-South to deliberately distort the process, muddle equity and invariably destroy the democratic process for transient personal gains. Makarfi’s action, to put it mildly, is sickening, untoward, blatantly tendentious , totally stripped of the typical moral high ground that often defines a well meaning, God- fearing arbitrating leadership.
“Everywhere you look, Makarfi is planting the agents of his favorite South-South candidate to stage manage warped and skewed congresses in an undisguised mockery of all the normative patterns of our founding fathers whose enduring forte about equity, justice and fairness is now being flung into the gutter. In a way, Makarfi is evidently resolved to repeat the farcical malady that characterized the debacle in Port Harcourt last year.”
“We have equally resolved that we will not be led along this ruinous path again. Never.
For the sake of propriety, for the sake of all that is good and meaningful, for the sake of equitable balance and moral appropriateness, we strongly advise Senator Makarfi to resign his position forthwith because he has been severely compromised. He can no longer play the role of a neutral arbiter who stands far above the fray. He is already tarred and soiled in the muddy waters of partisan prejudice. Makarfi should now do the most honourable thing by walking away and face his ambition squarely.”
He cannot use a privilege non-elective position to wangle undue advantages to his own side. It is patently unacceptable.
“We need to redeem our party by being faithful to the great ideals of our founding fathers. We really believe that elders of the party across the nation should summon an emergency summit to deliberate on the right way to restrategize our party and rectify the wrongs on the ground . All the elders across the zones must take it as a priority that this party can only be redeemed and restore to its winning ways when we are all sincere, genuine, and anchored on the path of salvaging righteousness.”
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