From Chris Anucha, Port Harcourt and Taiwo Amodu, Abuja
RIVERS State Governor, Nyesom Wike opened up yesterday on why former acting chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and the entire members of the erstwhile National Working Committee (NWC) were sacked.
He said governors did that to save the party from disintegration.
The governor, who, alongside Ektiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose and a few others, were fingered as brains behind the emergence of Sheriff as acting chairman said this in Port Harcourt, shortly after the party’s national convention last Saturday.
Wike, in his capacity as chairman of the 2016 PDP National Convention Planning Committee, told newsmen in Government House, Port Harcourt, last Friday, that the convention would go on, with Sheriff presiding, despite an injunction from the Federal High Court, Lagos.
Earlier, the court had ordered that elections should not be held in three key positions-chairman, secretary and auditor.
“You may also have heard that there are some court judgments and orders; it is important to clarify it here. First of all, you heard that part of the order purportedly given, that Sheriff had gone to court to say that there should not be a convention, in respect of the chairmanship position.”
Twenty-fours after, on Saturday, Wike retracted his earlier statement and gave reasons why Sheriff had to be removed and a caretaker committee put in place to run the party’s affairs.
“All along, the crisis has been about the former acting chairman, whose emergence was strongly opposed. This is destabilising the party, so, we had to let him go. What is important is the party and not the individual. No sacrifice is too much for anyone to make, as far as PDP is concerned.”
The governor said he had no personal interest for supporting Senator Sheriff and added that he was the best option at the time he emerged as the acting chairman and added: “We will not allow PDP to die or suffer divisions under our watch. History will never forgive us, if we watch the party die.”
According to Wike, party leaders would work towards maintaining unity among all members of the party, adding, “despite the challenges, the 2016 national convention was successful as the party has been repositioned in the interest of the nation.”
However, Daily Sun gathered that the governors had a sudden change of heart at their meeting last Friday at Government House, in Port Harcourt following alleged startling revelations on Sheriff’s alleged plot to bid for the party’s 2019 presidential ticket.
“One of the governors, from the South-west, who had been in the vanguard of the campaign for a fresh mandate for Sheriff, was said to have been taken aback when confronted with facts that Sheriff was playing on his intelligence. The vice-presidential slot he (Sheriff) had promised the governor was the same bait he used to secure the support of another serving governor from the South-East.
“That was the genesis of his problem with the governors. Everything was going on well for him in Porthacourt until Friday afternoon when the governors ditched him,” a PDP source disclosed yesterday.
It was also gathered that two weeks before Saturday’s convention, the governors persuaded Sheriff to call a press briefing to denounce his speculated presidential ambition, but, he allegedly refused.