Sheriff: PDP BoT receives petitions, meets today

The Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party has received petitions from different groups within the party on how to solve the crisis rocking the former ruling party, The PUNCH has gathered.

A member of the Board, who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity in Abuja on Sunday, said the BoT would consider the petitions before it.
The petitions, it was gathered, were aimed at putting the party in the right track ahead of its national convention slated for Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital on May 21.

Majority of the stakeholders of the party are insisting that its National Chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff, should not be a contestant for the same office at the convention.

Besides this, they are also saying the office of the national chairman should not be zoned to the North-East where Sheriff hails from.

Some are still contesting that the office should be zoned to the South-West, a region that has yet to produce the national chairman in the over 16 years of the party.

The Acting Chairman of the Board, Walid Jibrin, confirmed to our correspondent that the party’s BoT meeting would hold but he did not divulge its agenda.

It was learnt that the Board was being called upon to weigh its powers as stipulated in the party’s constitution.

Part IX 32 (5) of the PDP constitution empowers the BoT to “ensure highest standards of morality in all activities of the party by acting as the conscience of the party, with power to call to order any officer of the party whose conduct falls below the norms.”

The petitions were said to be on the zoning of the national offices and the need to either cancel or suspend the convention.

One of the groups that have submitted petitions to the BoT, it was gathered, is the one known as Stakeholders of the PDP, which is said to be led by Dr. Raymond Dokpesi.

A member of the group, who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity, said, “We have written to the BoT on the need to sack the entire members of the NWC on May 21.

“We are also demanding that a caretaker committee be constituted to manage the affairs of the party for sometime before convention is held.”

Members of the Dokpesi group were said to have scheduled a meeting for Thursday in Abuja.

It was gathered that a governor from the South-South (name withheld), has signified his intention to be at the meeting.