Makarfi, all his exco members should resign immediately ―Ebenezer Babatope

FORMER Minister of Transport, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, on Friday added his voice as he joined those calling for immediate resignation of Chairman, Caretaker Committee of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi and all his exco members, saying all the affected had virtually and entirely compromised their positions.

Besides, Babatope also demanded that the party’s national convention, scheduled to hold on December 9, 2017 in Abuja, the country’s Federal Capital should be postponed for at least one month to ensure that all the “corrupt and crooked contraptions of Makarfi are removed to allow a sane and more objective interregnum.”

This was just as he threatened that the Yoruba people, who he said were now poised and ready to claim what was deservedly theirs if they were denied the chairmanship of the party, would walk out of the PDP and pursue their fortunes somewhere else.

Making the calls, in a statement he personally issued, copy of which was made available to the Saturday Tribune, Chief Babatope, alleged that the PDP national chairman, Makarfi, was secretly nursing presidential ambition and, therefore, scheming to install an aspirant from South- South, Mr Uche Secondus as PDP new chairman.

This, he said was against clear understanding that the position was zoned basically to the South- West, contending that doing so would amount to handing over the PDP administration to the River State governor, Mr Nyesom Wike, through Secondus, who the former minister and party chieftain described as Wike’s “planted agent and acolyte.”

“In this grand scheme to compromise the national convention, Secondus and Wike will equally do a pay back by rigging the presidential primary to favour Makarfi,” Chief Babatope alleged.

“We insist on micro zoning. We demand that Makarfi and his co-conspirators should resign immediately while a new, neutral arbitrating leadership is appointed.

“The convention itself should be postponed for at least one month to ensure that all the corrupt and crooked contraptions of Makarfi are removed to allow a sane and more objective interregnum.

“The Yoruba people are now poised and ready to claim what is deservedly ours. If we are denied the chairmanship of the party, we will walk out of the PDP and take our fortunes somewhere else,” he threatened.

Buttressing what informed his position, the former minister, who maintained that Makarfi and his exco members were virtually and entirely compromised, said the statement by one Barrister Abdulahi Jalo, a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP and a close ally of Makarfi, confirmed the PDP chairman’s presidential ambition in the coming 2019 elections.

According to him, Jalo’s statement has basically reinforced the fears that Makarfi is not a neutral arbiter in the processes that will midwife a new leadership for the party.

“I want to make it absolutely clear that if Mr. Makarfi is an honourable man, he will voluntarily resign his position without waiting to be pushed out.

“The game plan of Mr. Makarfi is simply to handover the party administration to Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers State through his planted agent and acolyte Mr. Uche Secondus. In this grand scheme to compromise the national convention, Secondus and Wike will equally do a pay back by rigging the presidential primary to favour Makarfi.

“This is indeed a road to perdition and the ultimate destruction of PDP. Any attempt to distort the process and force upon us a discredited and dubious leadership will provoke a mass decamping of the Yoruba people from the PDP. We will never play a second fiddle to anyone.

“The Yoruba will never accept any attempt to insult our people and denigrate our collective intelligence. The only way out now is for Makarfi and his entire Caretaker Committee members to resign immediately. They cannot be trusted. Once the head is rotten, the whole body is subsequently vitiated, corrupted and dishonored.

“We are absolutely clear in our demand. We are absolutely resolved in our position. We will not stand idle and fold our hands while all kinds of machinations are being hatched to destroy the collective interest of the Yoruba people,” Babatope vowed.