The former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, and Senator Buruji Kashamu are absent at the party’s non-elective convention in Abuja.
This comes despite the olive branch the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee of the party extended an olive branch to Senator Sheriff, who led a faction of the party during its long leadership tussle.
On Friday, at a pre-convention briefing in Abuja, the National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Mr Dayo Adeyeye, had described today’s convention as a unity convention to enable members of the party form a common front against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019.
“The policy of no victor, no vanquished has been implemented by the National Caretaker Committee. So we are going to have a unity convention tomorrow; everybody has been brought together, they have integrated. This is a unity convention,” he had said.
“I want to assure you that those who were on the other side while we had a protracted court, virtually of them have been included to serve in this convention – go and check the list. There is no legal issue at all regarding this convention.”
As of the time of this report, Senator Sheriff, Senator Kashamu and many of Sheriff’s supporters were not at the convention.
The party had become embroiled in a leadership tussle after it missed the opportunity to elect its principal officials at the controversial August 2016 national convention in Port Harcourt, and set up a caretaker committee instead.
Leader of the caretaker committee, Senator Makarfi led one faction of the party, while Senator Sheriff led the other in the battle for the control of the former ruling party.
