Fidelia Okafor.

Factional National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Sen Ali Modu Sheriff, has shed light on why some chieftains of the party are opposed to his leadership role.

Speaking during a stakeholders meeting in Agbor, Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State, the former Borno State Governor disclosed that he was being opposed because chieftains of the party who pleaded with him to take up the role of the national leader of the party later realised that he could not be manipulated.

According to Sheriff, “Let me put the record straight, I never bargained to be national chairman of the PDP. I was sitting in the comfort of my house when leaders of the party across the country came and appealed to me to come and revamp the party.

“They later found out that I am a chairman that nobody can control. We went to Port Harcourt for a convention, and in my zone, North-East where the position was zoned to, everybody had endorsed me, it was then they discovered that nobody can stop me.

“Then, there was a court order that also stopped the election, and I canceled the convention. After we left, some people gathered and said they have set up a caretaker committee which is an aberration.

“So, we said we will wait for the last hope of the common man which is the courts to tell us who is right or who is wrong. Our tenure is still running as national officers of the party until you do another convention which must be presided over by me. We are law abiding party, whatever the court says, we will abide by it.”

The former Borno State governor also attributed the party’s loss in the 2015 general election to impunity.

He vowed to end the reign of impunity, which he claimed most governors on the platform of the party were not comfortable with.

The embattled chairman promised to take the party back to the grassroots where the people would be allowed to select their representatives.

Sheriff said, “At a stage, PDP had 29 governors but today we have just 12 because of impunity; if you elect a candidate, somebody in Abuja will substitute his name for another. They can’t do that with me. I don’t need any handout. I can run my house, I can pay my children’s fees.

“I was governor for eight years, I left the senate as a leader. I have done everything that needs to be done, what is left for me now is to return the PDP back to the owners. Take it to the grassroots so that it will be you that will choose your leaders.”