Sheriff ‘sneaks out’ of Aso Rock after meeting Buhari

Ali Modu Sheriff, former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa in Abuja on Thursday.

He, however, sneaked out after the almost one hour meeting which took place in the president’s office.

On his way to the president’s office, Sheriff indicated interest in speaking with reporters but suddenly changed his mind at the end of the meeting.

Sherrif, who left Aso Rock around 2:40pm, made use of the security gate reserved for service chiefs.

The former PDP leader returned to the All Progressives Congress (APC) three weeks ago but he had earlier told all those in his faction of the PDP to defect to APC.

When he visited Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno, last month, Sheriff said he had returned home.

“I rejoined my great party, APC following the misunderstanding we had in PDP where I was the national chairman,” he said.

During the heat of the leadership crisis in the PDP, some opposition leaders alleged that the federal government was using Sheriff to cause confusion in the PDP.

Sheriff had struggled with Ahmed Makarfi, chairman of the former caretaker committee of the PDP, over the leadership of the party.

But the supreme court recognised Makarfi as the authentic chairman of the party.

Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers state, had said the APC tried to use Sheriff to destroy PDP because of its own crisis.

“What the federal government is doing is because they have seen that the APC is fumbling, they want to cause crisis in PDP by using a stooge. Sheriff is a mole of the APC; he is being sponsored by the federal government. They are sponsoring Sheriff because of the crisis in the APC,” he had said.