Dr Cairo Ojougboh, former National Vice-Chairman (South-South) of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said Wednesday sack of Ali Modu Sheriff as national chairman of the party by an Abuja Federal High Court was an error.
Ojougboh, currently Deputy National Chairman of the Sheriff’s faction of the PDP, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
He said that the judgement did not concern Sheriff, adding that the court was misinformed.
Justice Nwamaka Ogbonna, who presided at the court which sat in Kubwa, affirmed an earlier judgment by another high court in the Federal Capital Territory that Sheriff was no longer the national chairman of the PDP.
He ordered that Sheriff should refrain from parading himself as chairman of the party.
A member of the party, Mr Danladi Ayuba, had approached the court to compel Sheriff to obey the court’s order by Justice Valentine Ashi on June 29.
Ashi had held that the emergence of Sheriff national chairman of the PDP was unlawful since it was based on amended provisions of the party’s Constitution, which was illegally introduced in December, 2014.
But, insisting that Wednesday judgment was made in error, Ojougboh said “if you say that you annulled the 2014 amended Constitution of the party, then you go back to the existing Constitution before that.
“It says that if the chairman resigns, somebody from that part of the country will be elected or appointed to continue and serve the tenure of the person who has resigned until a new convention is held.
“Now, since Muazu resigned, a new convention has not held and so that judgement does not even concern Sheriff at all.
“It has nothing to do with Sheriff; the court made a mistake and so we are addressing it.’’
Ojougboh said that Sheriff’s camp was doing everything possible to correct the impression of the court.
“The court did not have the correct information, then we were not served with it and Sheriff is not party to it. It has nothing to do with us.
“They are just shopping for judgement to subvert the course of justice and then deceive the laws to cause problem for the judiciary, which is very unfortunate,” he said.
Ojougboh, who insisted that the best means of solving the PDP leadership crisis was through dialogue, appealed to former President Goodluck Jonathan to intervene in the impasse.
He urged Jonathan to call a meeting of the governors, the Board of Trustees (BOT) and Sheriff.
“All parties should sit down under the chairmanship of the former president, look at the matters dispassionately and then take decisions that will take the power back to the people, which is our slogan, `PDP: Power to the people’.
“We don’t want the power to remain in the power of a few governors; that is what we are fighting for.’’
(NAN)
