The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, took a turn for the worse on Thursday, as the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff threatened to drag a former Information Minister, Prof. Jerry Gana before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Sheriff accused Gana of unilaterally taking a N500 million loan from a second generation bank on behalf of the PDP, without getting approval from the leadership of the party. He however did not state when the loan was taken.
According to the media aide of the PDP chairman, Inuwa Bwala, who addressed newsmen at the party’s national Secretariat on behalf of Sheriff, Gana lacked the credibility to criticise Sheriff.
Gana had incurred the wrath of the former Borno State governor earlier in the day when he said the PDP had been hijacked by hoodlums and gangsters who are bent on destroying the party.
The former minister, who spoke at a stakeholders forum in Abuja, also accused the Sheriff-led National Working Committee, NWC, of impunity and reckless imposition of candidates in the just concluded ward and state congresses across the federation.
Gana said: “To save the PDP from imminent collapse, we need excellent and competent leaders to run the party; not incompetent persons without dignity of purpose parading themselves as leaders.
“The Southern part of the country should produce the next national chairman because the North had produced seven national chairmen since the birth of the PDP in 1998.
“The Southwest geopolitical zone has never produced the national chairman in the 16 years of the existence of the PDP”.
Gana, who had other prominent members of the party present at the forum, also said the planned amendment to the PDP constitution, championed by Sheriff is illegal, insisting that the national convention slated for May 21 be put on hold.
However, Sheriff vowed to go ahead with the amendment of the constitution and national convention.
He said: “The national convention will certainly hold in Port Harcourt on May 21 if the world does not end before that date.
“The group headed by Prof. Gana and similar others are not known to the party. They should take their grievances to the convention if they have any. If they choose to leave the PDP, it would be good riddance.
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“It would be foolhardy for the PDP chairman to involve the same people who led the PDP to failure in the 2015 general elections in rebuilding the party. These are the same people that played ignoble roles in squandering the resources of the party.
“Let it be known to Prof. Gana and members of his group that they don’t have the monopoly of mudslinging. If we are forced to open up on them, we will not hesitate to do so.
The Gana group, in a communique issued at the end of their meeting, announced a 21-member steering committee to run the affairs of the party and work with the Board of Trustees to conduct the national convention.
The communique was signed by a former Education Minister, Prof. Tunde Adeniran; a former Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu; and Chief Raymond Dokpesi.
Chief Ojo Maduekwe, Okwesilieze Nwodo, Chief Bode George, Wilberforce Juta, Dr. Shettima Mustapha, Senator Bala Mohammed, Ibrahim Bunu, Senator Grace Bent, Adamu Maina Waziri, among others attended the meeting.
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