National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has accused the Governor of Rivers state, Nyeson Wike, and his Ekiti state counterpart, Ayodele Fayose, of recruiting former President Goodluck Jonathan to scuttle the party’s peace process.
Sheriff alleged that the two governors brought in Jonathan to frustrate the efforts of the party’s Peace and Reconciliation Committee headed by the Governor of Bayelsa state, Henry Seriake Dickson.
The former president had, on Thursday last week in Abuja, organised the party’s stakeholders’ meeting, which ended in stalemate as Sheriff and his supporters staged a walkout.
However, members of the sacked National Caretaker Committee of the party, headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, and other stakeholders of the party were in attendance.
The Makarfi committee, which was sacked by the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, has however taken its case to the Supreme Court.
Sheriff, who spoke through his deputy, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, in a press conference on Thursday in Abuja, said: “It was a thing of joy for the party faithful as they jubilated that indeed peace has returned to the party.
“But to the surprise of all, Wike and Fayose recruited the former President Goodluck Jonathan into a fake peace effort predetermined to scuttle Governor Dickson’s efforts.
“The result is that President Jonathan was lured into committing a serious breach of protocol that led to the failure of the exercise, which was the intended outcome.”
Sheriff also accused Wike of spending Rivers state resources recklessly on the crisis, calling on stakeholders to stop collecting”blood money” from him.
Jonathan’s spokesman, Ikechukwu Eze, has however denied that the former president took sides with any faction, saying his only interest was to bring lasting peace to the party that made him.
