Sheriff ignores ceasefire agreement, says Makarfi should leave PDP alone

The moves by Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson-led Peace and Reconciliation Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may not have yielded the desired result as the national chairman of the party, Ali Modu Sheriff, seems to have ignored the party’s ceasefire agreement.

Sheriff on Sunday in Abuja, avowed that the national caretaker committee led by Ahmed Makarfi remains illegal and warned that the group should not be referred to, as a faction of the PDP any longer.

He further vowed to initiate legal action against anyone who refers to Makarfi-led committee as a faction of the party and gave seven days ultimatum to the administrative staff of the PDP to return any of the party’s belongings still in their custody or face police action.

“Makarfi should behave himself, he should not interfere in our business, because we are not interested in his private business.

“Any further careless statement from him will force us to reconsider our earlier peace agreement. We have already employed staff who are running the bureaucracy efficiently. If Makarfi so desire, he should keep the old staff, just as he is doing now. We have had enough and enough is enough of this”, Sheriff stated.

It could be recalled that in a meeting brokered by Dickson’s peace committee between Sheriff and Makarfi factions of the party last Thursday, the warring groups had signed a peace pact to end the exchange of words.

Though Sheriff and Makarfi were not present at the meeting, their representatives signed the agreement on behalf of their principals.

In the communique arising from the meeting and read by erstwhile Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ibrahim Mantu, the group among other things to, “desist from making derogatory, inflammatory and divisive statements against party officials, stakeholders and members.

“That the party should not dissipate her energy amongst itself but to focus on how to unite and be a formidable opposition capable of taking over power from the failed All Progressives Congress-led government.

However, Sheriff in a statement on Sunday, by his deputy, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, declared Makarfi group as illegal, claiming that by the pronouncement of the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, such a group was dead.

Cautioning that Makarfi group should understand that its appeal against the judgement of the appellant court pending at the Supreme Court was not a stay of execution of the judgment, Sheriff added that the group should stop interfering in the affairs of the party.

He said the job vacancies recently announced by Sheriff was to fill positions, since old staff decided to abandon their work despite appeals for them to resume work.