PDP chair: Resign now, Bode George tells Makarfi

ONE of the aspirants to the office of the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party ((PDP), Chief Bode George has demanded the resignation of the Chairman of the National Caretaker Committee (NCC) of the party, Senator Ahmed Makarfi in what is ostensibly a deepening of the crisis preceding the election of a new party leadership.

The aspirant has accused the party boss of being biased as according to him, Makarfi was working towards the emergence of a south south aspirant as the national chairman.

But the party boss has dismissed George’s allegation as “ridiculous and unfortunate,” saying that the aspirant may have sensed that he will lose.

According to a statement issued by Alhaji Ibrahim Aliu, the Director-General Bode George Campaign Organization in Abuja on Tuesday, Makarfi was doing that to facilitate his own emergence as the presidential candidate of the party in 2019.

The stay read: “It is increasingly disturbing and rather untidy the role Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Chairman of the PDP Caretaker Committee is presently playing in the processes towards the party national convention on December 9, this year.

“Apparently spurred by personal ambition of contesting for the Presidential office in 2019, Makarfi is brazenly allying with a particular aspirant in the South-South to deliberately distort the process, muddle equity and invariably destroy the democratic process for transient personal gains.

“Makarfi’s Action, to put it mildly, is sickening, untoward, blatantly tendentious, totally stripped of the typical moral high ground that often defines a well-meaning, God-fearing arbitrating leadership.

“Everywhere you look, Makarfi is planting the agents of his favorite South-South candidate to stage manage warped and skewed congresses in an undisguised mockery of all the normative patterns of our founding fathers whose enduring forte about equity, justice and fairness is now being flung into the gutter.

“In a way, Makarfi is evidently resolved to repeat the farcical malady that characterized the debacle in Port Harcourt last year.

“We have equally resolved that we will not be led along this ruinous path again. Never!

“For the sake of propriety, for the sake of all that is good and meaningful, for the sake of equitable balance and moral appropriateness, we strongly advise Senator Makarfi to resign his position forthwith because he has been severely compromised.

“He can no longer play the role of a neutral arbiter who stands far above the fray. He is already tarred and soiled in the muddy waters of partisan prejudice.

“Makarfi should now do the most honorable thing by walking away and face his ambition squarely.

“He cannot use a privilege non-elective position to wangle undue advantages to his own side. It is patently unacceptable.

“We need to redeem our party by being faithful to the great ideals of our founding fathers. We really believe that elders of the party across the nation should summon an emergency summit to deliberate on the right way to restrategize our party and rectify the wrongs on the ground.

“All the elders across the zones must take it as a priority that this party can only be redeemed and restore to its winning ways when we are all sincere, genuine, and anchored on the path of salvaging righteousness.”

Reacting to the allegation in a phone chat with Tribune Online, Makarfi said George was basing his claim on a letter previously written by another aspirant, where he listed five people in the convention committee alleged to be supporters of a south south aspirant.

The former Kaduna state governor said the five was insignificant in a committee of about 160 persons who he said had the right to align with any candidate of their choice.

“That is politics,” Makarfi stated.

He advised George to concentrate on his campaign rather than raising baseless allegations.