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Secretary of the Caretaker Committee of the peoples democratic party, PDP, Senator Ben Obi, has said the committee will take over the secretariat of the party today.
Heavily armed policemen, yesterday, took over the national secretariat of the party, denying entry and exit to and from the building.
The development, which came ahead of today’s expected takeover of the national secretariat by the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led caretaker committee, was also shadowed by continuing intrigues as the ousted Senator Sheriff executive was last night also said to be preparing to fight back.
Sheriff and his aides, who could not be reached for most of yesterday, were said to be engaged in a meeting with his dissolved National Working Committee, NWC.
READ ALSO Police Seals off PDP National Headquarters
Senator Obi acknowledged that he had been informed about the police presence at the secretariat but declined to speak further, pointing out that he did not have the facts of the matter.
He said the chairman of the caretaker committee and his team would formally assume office today at the party secretariat. Meantime, Sheriff and some of his loyalists in the just dissolved NWC were said to be locked in a meeting yesterday night.
Repeated efforts to reach them and their aides were unsuccessful as the phone calls were either not answered or their phones were switched off. Sheriff insists he is still chairman Sheriff, last night, insisted that he remained the chairman of the party, saying all that transpired after he cancelled the convention on Saturday were null and void by the fact that he had postponed the convention.
Speaking through his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Inuwa Bwala, who addressed journalists in Abuja, yesterday, Sheriff said the NWC under his leadership would make its position known today. He said: “What transpired in Port Harcourt was a nullity. We have decided to go to court to vacate the order of the court.
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It is after that that we will fix a date for another convention. “By Friday, they served him (Sheriff) four court papers. At that point, he felt that he would summon a meeting of the necessary organs and inform them that before he went to Port Harcourt, he heard of court papers but he had not been served.
The orders of the court were contradictory and he felt that if he obeyed them, he would be acting in defiance of the court order.
“He informed the governors that with this court ruling, we would be going contrary to the court order and called for the shifting of the convention since the court said their tenure still subsists.
“As at Friday, we approached a court in Lagos to vacate the existing court order and we were denied.
He advised that the convention should be shifted but some governors agreed while others disagreed. He summoned the NWC as critical stakeholders and sought their opinion. “Some interested NWC members were parties to the court and naturally agreed.
He summoned a press conference. All NWC left except Uche Secondus. It is contradictory that the chairman who cancelled the convention was being represented. Their personal interest took a better of them against the law.”
Meanwhile as the PDP lurched into another crisis, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said it would take a position on the PDP leadership tussle only after studying the report of the team it sent to monitor the Port Harcourt convention.
The Deputy Director in charge of Media and Publicity, Mr. Nick Dazang who spoke to THISDAY on the phone said the commission was aware of the events in the opposition party, but would wait for the report of the monitoring team before making its position known on the Port Harcourt convention.
