The Senator, representing Ogun East Senatorial District, Prince Buruji Kashamu, yesterday declared that the court cases arising from the leadership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, may linger till 2019.
He gave the warning while reviewing the resolutions from the meeting of the members of the party’s Board of Trustees in Abuja, last Monday.
The senator, added that the resolution by the BoT to shift the party’s national convention to Abuja may not help to resolve the leadership crisis.
This comes as Sen Ali Modu Sheriff, has jettisoned the Dickson/Mantu Reconciliation Committee proposal, which recommended a joint chairmanship of Sheriff and Makarfi ahead of a fresh convention.
Sheriff insisted that he alone has the legitimate mandate to convene a NEC meeting where Makarfi can attend as BoT member and a date agreed upon for the unity convention, where a convention committee will be setup.
Last Monday, the PDP BoT had passed a vote of confidence on the National Caretaker Committee and recommended the shift of the National Convention from Rivers State to Abuja.
But, Kashamu warned yesterday that “The outcome of such a convention will not be different from the botched Port Harcourt conventions where the process was manipulated towards achieving a predetermined end.”
The senator further faulted the pronouncements, saying that “To say the least, those pronouncements neither portrayed a genuine spirit of reconciliation nor were they expected from our leaders who are the conscience and the respected leading lights of the party.”
He noted that the elders of the party ought “to preside over a transparent and unbiased reconciliation process whereby they would have summoned Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and Senator Ahmed Makarfi and get the two respectable leaders to talk to each other in a room and come up with their own plans for the resolution of the crisis.
Meanwhile, the Sen Ahmed Makarfi-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday distanced itself from a suit against Justice Ibrahim Auta and Justice Okon Abang as a result of their involvement in the judgment delivered on the party.
Makarfi, in a statement by his Special Adviser, Dr. Ibrahim Umar, therefore directed the party members or groups that initiated the suit to immediately withdraw it.
He said the PDP under his leadership had no reason to sue the honourable Justices of the Federal High Courts, stressing that the party would continue to rely strongly on the judiciary.