PDP Chair Crises: I made APC attractive to Nigerians; I will do same for PDP – Sheriff Boasts

Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff, PDP Chair 

Former Borno governor, Senator Ali-Modu Sheriff, assumed office as National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Abuja on Monday, with a pledge to exert on the party, the same approach he used in making the All Progressives Congress, APC, attractive to Nigerians.

Sheriff, who disclosed this in an interview with newsmen after he took over, decried calls for his resignation by the PDP Rescue Group insisting that he was not going to resign his appointment as the chairman of the party.

It would be recalled that the PDP Rescue Group, led by Ambassador Wilberforce Juta who was among those inthe race for the party’s chairmanship, had at a press conference in Abuja on Sunday, asked Sheriff to resign as PDP National Chairman.

But while stating the only thing that can make him relinquish control of the party, Sheriff said: “The leadership of this party in their wisdom asked me to lead.

“If the National Executive Council, NEC, of this party collectively asks me to leave, I will leave.

“I will reposition this party and take it to election within a time frame decided by the leaders of this party to conduct a credible, effective congress that will stand the test of time,” he said.

On when his tenure as PDP National Chairman would expire, Sheriff said that the party’s leadership would take the decision.

He went on to make clarifications on his appointment contrary to the party’s constitution that for anybody to be appointed or elected as PDP official, he must have spent three years in the party.

While stressing that PDP had earlier granted him a waiver on the matter, the former Borno governor added that he did not regret all the political parties he was part of its formation including the All Progressives Congress, APC.

“I was the founding father of the UNCP, and I was also one of the founding fathers of APC,” he said, adding that he left the APC because he is a man of principles.

According to him, “There are issues that I cannot discuss on the pages of newspapers because I am an elder statesman.“I am a man of principles and I stand by my principles.

“The same instruments we used to make APC attractive to all Nigerians, we are going to use it for PDP now.”

The ex-Governor explained that his assignment was to talk with every founding father of the party and those who had left because they were aggrieved.

Responding to allegations of his link with the Boko Haram sect, Sheriff said nobody in the position of authority who knows the truth has ever accused or linked him to the sect.

“No court of competent jurisdictions has ever linked meto Boko Haram,” he averred, recounting that he was notonly the first target of Boko Haram, but his younger brother was also killed by the terrorists.

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