Electing Sheriff National Chairman Will Be Disastrous, Okupe Tells PDP

An aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin

Okupe, has called on leaders of the Peoples

Democratic Party, PDP, not to elect Ali Modu

Sheriff the party’s chairman.

Mr. Okupe said electing the controversial Borno

politician would mean repeating the mistake the

party made in adopting Goodluck Jonathan as its

presidential candidate in 2015.

The PDP has been plunged into a protracted

internal crisis as Mr. Sheriff, who is its substantive

chairman, insists on contesting for the position at

the national convention scheduled to hold on May

21 in Port-Harcourt.

Mr. Sheriff’s prominent loyalists, including the

party’s national secretary, Wale Oladipo, said the

former Borno State governor, who was appointed

in February, should be allowed to lead the party

into the 2019 elections.

“Senator Ali Modu Sheriff is the right man for the

job,” Mr. Oladipo said in a text message to

PREMIUM TIMES. “He has my absolute support.”

In a post on his Facebook wall on Sunday, the

authorship of which he confirmed to PREMIUM

TIMES, Mr. Okupe, who served Mr. Jonathan as a

senior special assistant on public affairs, said the

leaders of the opposition party are on the verge of

repeating the errors that relegated them from a

16-year political dominance.

“The argument that because the party is weak in

the north if the chairman is zoned to the north it

will strengthen the party in that zone is a puerile

argument,” Mr. Okupe wrote. “It is not supported

by fact or history.”

Citing the historical precedent of two late

politicians, Obafemi Awolowo and Adisa Akinloye,

Mr. Okupe said politicians have their unique

appeals that set them apart from each other,

adding that only a genuine engagement with the

party’s political base could help reverse its

misfortunes.

“When Awolowo was alive, there were great

politicians in the West, but he was of such stature

that if the ruling party then appointed one

national chairman per state in the west it would

have amounted to no political strength or gain

whatsoever. It was this type of sentiment that led

to the zoning of the chairman of the NPN

(National Party of Nigeria) to chief Adisa Akinloye,

no doubt a political Juggernaut, but still could not

produce the desired result,” Mr. Okupe said.

“What we need to strengthen the PDP in the

north is, excellent and stellar performance of PDP

governors in the north and the south, diligent

and committed efforts by local party leadership

and passionate and courageous; genuine and

dutiful; engagement of the leadership of the party

at all levels with the grassroots in the zone.”

Mr. Okupe also reminded PDP leaders of the

failure of Adamu Mu’azu, who resigned as

chairman in May 2015 after presiding over the

party’s biggest electoral disaster in history