• Supreme Court Judgment stabilised polity –Makarfi

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was unable to hold the meetings of its various organs because it was afraid of an implosion.
Chairman of the PDP National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, stated this yesterday when he played host to a delegation of former speakers of the state houses of Assembly at the party national secretariat in Abuja.
The PDP leader said: “Even with our crisis, we were never afraid to hold meetings. Within two days, we held three meetings; expanded caucus meeting, caucus meetings, Board of Trustees (BoT) and National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting. It was like a market place. People came from everywhere, but nobody had to fear.
Meanwhile, Makarfi said the APC wanted to copy the PDP, but after their meeting some governors threatened to leave the party.
“This was the first meeting they were having in two years and some governors threatened to leave,” Makarfi stated.
The PDP leader said: We will give credible opposition. But we won’t make hate speeches. We will talk in a language that will show that we are mature politicians.”
The PDP leader said the recent Supreme Court judgment on the party’s leadership crisis stabilised the polity. He said the judgment, which affirmed him as the authentic leader of the PDP, calmed down frayed nerves in the country, as the people know that there is now an alternative to the ruling APC. He stated this while receiving members of the PDP Women Forum, who visited him at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja, yesterday.
Makarfi noted that the 14 months crisis in the party was not a struggle for the leadership of the opposition party, but “for the survival of democracy in Nigeria.”
He said: “It was not a struggle over PDP leadership. It was a struggle for democracy.
“It was a landmark judgement which touches on every political party. It’s a landmark judgment that has stabilised the polity.
“We know there is hunger, we know there are difficulties, all kinds of problems in the country. But as soon as this judgment came, it seemed to have brought down tempers. Why tempers have gone down is that people have seen the alternative they have been waiting for.”
The PDP leader, who stated that his present task was to reconcile every interest group in the party, promised not to disappoint the members.