9 PDP governors supports Ali Modu Sheriff

The Ali Modu Sheriff-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) group yesterday said that it enjoyed the support of nine of the party’s 12 governors.Also, Sheriff’s deputy, who was National Vice Chairman of the party in the South-South geo-political zone, Cairo Ojuogboh, in a statement in Abuja said that aside Governors Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Ayo Fayose (Ekiti) and Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), other PDP governors are behind Sheriff.

Ojuogboh also said that the PDP would come out stronger when the crisis in the party eventually ends, adding: “What is happening today in the PDP is what is going to save the PDP. If this crisis did not arise, the party would have been wallowing today in ignorance.

“If you look at what is happening in the party, there is no elder in the party. The newsmen always make the mistake to say that the Governors’ Forum is in support of one group, the Board of Trustees is in support of one group and members of the National Assembly are in support of one group. Have you heard that any member of these bodies speak to support anybody. They are waiting for Sheriff to win so that there will be jubilation in the body polity of PDP and the country.”

In another development, Governor of Ondo State and Chairman of PDP Governor’s Forum, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, has urged the party to emplace discipline and instruments of governance to sustain the nation.

Mimiko, who said this at the PDP South-West zonal inaugural ceremony in Akure yesterday, enjoined leaders and members of the party across the six states of the region to inculcate discipline among the rank and file of the party.

He lamented the high-level of indiscipline in the party that culminated into series of leadership crises at the national level and challenges that also have overbearing effects in some states.

Also, the PDP National Vice Chairman (South-West), Dr. Eddy Oloroogun Olafeso, earlier in his welcome address said the party leadership has taken it upon itself to fight for the masses and ensure that the Yoruba nation is not marginalised.

Meanwhile, the party yesterday condemned comments by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, ‎against the emergence of Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu.

Spokesman of the Ahmed Makarfi-led caretaker committee of the PDP, Dayo Adeyeye, in a statement issued in Abuja yesterday drew attention to remarks credited to Oyegun against Ekweremadu.

The statement said: “Although this has been an open secret, but our fears have now been confirmed by the APC National Chairman himself.“We, however, want to make it clear that the APC has no constitutional or moral grounds to be displeased with Ekweremadu’s emergence or to go this ridiculous length to harass, intimidate, embarrass and malign him and the Senate on account of a position to which his colleagues, cutting across party lines, elected him in a transparent and televised election in line with Section 50 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

“Even the APC as a party and through its chieftains, including President Muhammadu Buhari, had variously and robustly defended the constitutionality and imperativeness of bi-partisan legislative leadership during the defection of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, to its fold while in opposition without relinquishing his position.”