It is a pity how the lingering crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party is defying all forms of amicable solutions including various court orders, a situation that signposts its sudden demise if appropriate remedies are not promptly applied. Many well-meaning members of the party have unsuccessfully proffered solutions to the fratricidal feud that outwardly begun with bland leadership tussle but which progressively developed into vindictive vendetta, threatening to consume the party.
The two emergent factions defied all moves at reconciliation and have continued to forge ahead like similar poles of two bars of magnets, always repealing each other, without any prospects of coming together for their mutual benefit. Spirited attempts to strike a compromise in the relationship between the two warring factions, led by two prominent Senators, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi and Ali Modu Sheriff, and were always thwarted. One of them has always been unyielding or obdurate in his unprincipled stance to give peace a chance, thus frustrating all maneuvers to bury the differences and then forge ahead.
Leaders of the party have identified Senator Modu Sheriff as the obstinate sparring partner in that embarrassing situation, but Senator Ahmed Muhammad Makarfi who was rational and more disposed to amicable settlement remains the toast of the party’s various leadership structures, reposing tremendous confidence in his innate ability to rescue the PDP from its present predicaments and take it to the promised land. In his continued defiance of harmonious solution to the protracted crisis within the party, Senator Sheriff was unrelenting in laying insurmountable obstacle in the path of peace within the party. He has called for the dissolution of Ahmed Makarfi-led caretaker committee as a precondition for reconciliation and out rightly rejected the choice of Port Harcourt as the venue of the National Convention slated for August seventeenth. Ironically, the last National Convention of the Party which bred the misunderstanding that inevitably led to the fictionalization of the party was held in Port Harcourt.
But from all indications Senator Sheriff is only buying time to delay the inevitable and to dig his own political grave after his looming, appalling demise in an irrational fight with his mighty party chieftains. Presently, he is now on the verge of being rejected by the party that once honored and held him in high esteem. He should, therefore, be wise enough to read the handwriting on the wall and find for himself a reasonable and honorable exit from the party before he is flushed out like bad rubbish.
Modu Sheriff, as a new entrant into the already entrenched political party—the PDP—was over pampered simply because his new companions wanted to spite the political party he had hitherto unwisely rejected by accommodating him in their fold. Nigerians having known the antics of turn-coat politicians always expect an imminent friction or disagreement between people of differing political objectives coming together in an unholy alliance.
The PDP was cautioned on various occasions about Sheriff’s infidelity but it turned deaf ears and, instead protected and decorated him with various honors and laurels. Failure to heed the ominous warning about Sheriff’s disposition was largely responsible for the sorry state of affairs that currently envelops the party. Accordingly, it has now aptly reaped were it has appropriately sown. And because of that it has nobody to blame but itself.
With Senator Sheriff now swimming against the tide, he should understand that in politics it is the position of the majority that matters most. He should now begin to realize and accept the supremacy of the party and begin to sway with the wind of its opinion or else be broken by it. Sheriff should concede to Senator Ahmed Makarfi if he wants to remain relevant within the party’s heirachy. The beginning of wisdom for Modu Sheriff, in this hour of his trial, is to realize that the same people that had hitherto bestowed honor on him are the same people now showing him the exit, and he should wisely and quietly quit when the ovation is loudest.
It is instructive that the PDP must have learnt a bitter lesson from the way it had earlier judged or evaluated Senator Modu Sheriff as its interim chairman, thereby failing to anticipate the consequences of its ill-informed action. No wonder, therefore, it is now in a state of uncertainty or indecision as to what to do in the difficult situation into which it is now terribly enmeshed.
From all indications, the PDP is now facing disastrous predicament and the only way out of that is for the strata of its leadership to rally round Ahmed Makarfi, as the favored provisional leader of the party, and give him all the necessary support he needs to facilitate a successful national convention which will hopefully remedy all the chaotic state the faction of Senator Modu Sheriff has thrown it into.
