Makarfi: Why south-west could not win the chairmanship position

Ahmed Makarfi, former chairman of the caretaker committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has spoken on the possible reason for the loss of the south-west in the party’s national convention.

Five candidates from the region had withdrawn from the chairmanship race and adopted Tunde Adeniran as their consensus candidate.

Adeniran later emerged second in the exercise with 231 votes, far behind the 2,000 votes garnered by Uche Secondus, the new chairman.

Speaking on Channels TV on Monday, Makarfi said the south-west never had a true consensus candidate for the chairmanship position.

He also said a “damaging campaign” engineered by an unnamed individual rubbed negatively on the region.

“For the south-west, it was at the convention venue that they resolved on a consensus candidate. And even then, another candidate came to the state box and met the leaders and said, look, they never resolved, that he was still in the race. So, it was a total confusion,” he said.

“Somebody signs on behalf of other candidates and say ‘we now have a consensus candidate and please support him’ and another going round and saying ‘no, we don’t have a consensus candidate’.

He, however, did not say who that individual was.

“The whole issue of the south-west was its inability to put itself in order in good time. And then allowing some characters that cannot stand up in terms of credibility to occupy the political and media landscape; all kinds of abuses,” Makarfi said.

“And we cautioned them that that negative campaign by one individual was damaging them as people and members of the PDP and they needed to call that person to order. Still, they never called him to order. And as far as I know, ninety-percent of PDP members that person comes to will run away.”

‘NO SUCH THING AS UNITY LIST’

Makarfi also denied the allegation that the convention was marred by a ‘unity list’.

The said list featured names of individuals and their respective positions. All positions in the list later corresponded with the list of successful candidates announced.

But Makarfi insisted “nobody hosted anything like unity list on delegates.”

He said: “Nobody had a list going to the polling unit. Every delegate had his ballot paper and at each polling unit, names of those standing for the election were there. And delegates look at that and made their choice.

“In politics, you also have consensus building. Even before the convention, you had geopolitical zones and states endorsing candidates. So if a zone is endorsing a particular candidate, they must have consulted with their delegates so they must have arrived at that venue with already a decision as to who to vote for.

“Before the convention, people were going round and campaigning and some states, changing their mind. So the issue of any particular list may be an issue of a state or zone who has come to a decision that this is where we were going.”