Makarfi heaves sigh of relief after seeing Sheriff off to his political bus stop

The political wildfire which nearly consumed the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as main opposition party began when in an attempt to rescue the party from the disgrace and agony of the 2015 presidential election defeat, Nyesom Wike, Rivers State governor; Ayodele Fayose, Ekiti State governor and others beckoned on Ali Modu Sheriff, ex-governor of Borno State, who is also a former chairman, Board of Trustees ( BoT) of the defunct All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), to sit on the driver’s seat of the umbrella party.

But it soon proved a misadventure. The impact of Sheriff’s emergence was very swift as the crises in the PDP drained whatever ounce of strength left in it. So, the party began its dangerous descent into the abyss as it imploded into two factions.

The prolonged legal tussle ensued when indication emerged that Sheriff planned to extend his tenure beyond its three-month mandate ahead of the convention which was slated to hold on May 21, 2016, in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

The real legal drama then began when two Federal High Courts- one in Abuja and the other in Port Harcourt gave conflicting rulings on the legality of the convention. While Justice Ibrahim Watila of the Port Harcourt Court okayed the convention, Justice Okon Abang, his Abuja counterpart, stopped the exercise.

Abang ruling which ordered the suspension of the planned national convention on August 17, after the Port Harcourt branch of the same court had given a go-ahead order, compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the police to ensure the conduct of the convention, was greeted with variegated legal interpretations by experts and analysts alike.

Recall that, in what observers described at the time as “playing to the gallery”, despite the Port Harcourt ruling, the police foiled the exercise from taking place at the Liberation Stadium, leading to the convergence of most PDP leaders at the Rivers State Government House where Ahmed Makarfi, a former governor of Kaduna State, was chosen as acting national chairman.

Critics had also pointed fingers at Abuja, accusing the powers that be of trying to use Sheriff to destroy the PDP. Those who held this view reasoned that it was impossible for Sheriff to have mobilised the security agents to foil the convention with some orders “from above”.

Sheriff did not stop at disrupting the convention, he went ahead to seize the party’s National Secretariat, Abuja. Again, he got the security agents to bar the other faction from venturing into the premises.

Sheriff who was armed with a copy of a ruling by a Federal High Court, Lagos, which affirmed the legality of his position as chairman of PDP despite his removal at the Port Harcourt convention, then sealed up the party secretariat that fateful morning.

Accusing the PDP governors and other members of the NWC at the scheduled May 21, 2016, election of abandoning the ‘original script’ and in its stead, led other delegates to the convention ground where they appointed a national caretaker committee headed by Ahmed Makarfi, insisted that the convention had been called off and sustained himself as national chairman leading to rival factions of the party in some states with divided loyalty to both himself and Makarfi.

After months of traversing the courts, the Sheriff faction approached the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt to contest a decision of the lower court which on July 4, 2016 affirmed the emergence of Makarfi as the authentic leader of the PDP during the May 21 convention of the party.

While the mainstream of the party, including the governors and National Assembly members have remained with Makarfi, the Sheriff faction has from time to time been given legal boost with favourable court decisions in some states and at the national level.

After months of traversing the courts, the Sheriff faction approached the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt to contest a decision of the lower court which on July 4, 2016 affirmed the emergence of Makarfi as the authentic leader of the PDP during the May 21 convention of the party.

As the drama continued, on February 17, this year, the Port-Harcourt Division of the Appeal Court upturned the decision of the lower court and affirmed the appointment of Sheriff as the authentic leader of the party.

But Makarfi’s faction continued to press for justice  based on the Federal High Court, Port-Harcourt ruling headed by Justice Mohammed Liman which ordered that the Makarfi faction be duly recognised and that Sheriff should not parade himself as national chairman.

After that judgment, the Makarfi-led faction approached the Supreme Court in what was seen as last final match to ascertain who will eventually take control of the PDP.

As it is said, all that has a beginning has an end, the Supreme Court last Wednesday upheld the election of Makarfi, as the authentic chairman of the PDP, after long and bitter legal battle that threatened to tear the umbrella party, which once tagged itself as “largest political party in Africa” and had planned to rule Nigeria for 60 years.

A three-member panel of the court presided over by Walter Onnoghen, Chief Justice of Nigeria, reprimanded Sheriff, for what it calls “infantile desperation to lead the party.”

Reading out the judgment after weeks of compilation, Rhodes Vivour, a member of the panel, said Sheriff was not within the category of an “unimpeachable leader”, saying that his removal was not necessarily expected to follow a vote of no confidence.

“There is no clause in the constitution of the party that made it mandatory for Sheriff to be removed using a vote of no confidence. He demonstrated an infantile desperation to lead the PDP by filing almost 10 different applications in various courts. They shall forever gather dust in judicial archives.

“The subject matter in the issue is Article 33; 35 and 47. ‘“There shall be a national convention. All members of the party shall be bound by the decisions of leaders from the National convention. Article 33 states the supremacy of the National convention”’.

Although some observers have expressed the optimism that the resolution of the impasse would propel the PDP to greater exploits in 2019, some critics, however, have described the protracted legal acrobatics between Makarfi and Sheriff-led factions of the PDP as a divine punishment for the party’s 16 years misrule, which they say plunged the country into serious crisis.

With the ruling, Makarfi may have effectively seen Sheriff off to his political bus stop, as according to some analysts, “Sheriff is a bad market to any party he may try to join ahead of 2019.”

 

NATHANIEL AKHIGBE