Ali Modu Sheriff is acting PDP national chairman

Ali Modu Sheriff, former Borno state governor, has emerged the acting national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after a rocky chairmanship tussle.

A source at the PDP hierarchy confirmed the development to TheCable on Tuesday.

He explained that the all national caucuses of the party had adopted the former governor as national chairman, but that the board of trustees (BoT) was yet to ratify his appointment.

“When the BoT ratifies the appointment, the national executive committee will now make the announcement,” he added.

PDP ran into a snag after Adamu Mu’azu, its former national chairman, resigned in May 2015. After losing the 2015 presidential election, the party was engulfed in wrangles that forced some of its leaders out.

Expectedly, Uche Secondus, Mu’azu’s deputy, from Rivers state, took control of the PDP leadership, but his intervention irked some members who maintained that the position should be reserved for the northeast since Mu’azu, who is from Bauchi state, did not complete his term.

Among the agitators was Ahmed Gulak, former senior special assistant on political matters to former President Goodluck Jonathan.

After suing the leadership of the party at a federal capital territory (FCT) high court, Abuja, and got judgment in his favour, Gulak, a native of Adamawa state, “invaded” the PDP headquarters in Abuja to take over its leadership.

The spectacle prompted an emergency meeting of PDP governors, who condemned Gulak’s theatrics but asked Secondus to step down in compliance with the court order that gave him a 14-day ultimatum to do so.

Among the contenders for the position were Gulak; Mohammed Wakil (Borno state), former minister of state for power; Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); Wilberforce Juta, former deputy governor of defunct Gongola state.

In 2014, Stephen Davis, an Australian negotiator, named Sheriff, the new acting national chairman, as one of the sponsors of Boko Haram, but he failed to prove the allegation against the former governor.