The Chairman of the National Caretaker Committee, NCC, of the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP, Senator Ahmed Markafi, at the weekend declared that aspirants with pending cases in court would not be disqualified from contesting the National Chairmanship position at the party’s elective convention in December.
Senator Markafi made the clarification while speaking with news men when a contender to the office of the national chairmanship of the Party, Otunba Gbenga Daniel paid him a courtesy visit.
According to him, “If you play that game (disqualification of candidates based on pending EFCC case), that will be playing into the hands of the government in such a way that every one of us can be charged to court so that PDP will have no candidate
“Except you are convicted by a court of law, nothing can stop you from contesting even the general election not to talk of party issue, so we shouldn’t play into the hands of those we want to unseat
On the porputed disqualification of some candidates by a section of the Board of Trustee in the Southwest, Markafi said: “the decision of the party is to be heard from the National Caretaker Committee and we didn’t say so and I can affirm that nobody was delegated to say so
“Let me remind you that at our caucus meeting we had on Wednesday in Abuja, the BOT Chairman categorically scolded those that did that and he said they acted without directive and the action was ultra vires as far as the BOT was concerned.”
While reacting on reports in some newspapers and Social Media that the December 9, National Convention might be postponed due to lack of fund, Markafi discarded the reports reiterating the readiness of the National Caretaker Committee to go ahead with the Convention as scheduled.
According to him,”There is no truth in that allegation, we are all set, we are not lagging behind”.
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