Embattled former governor of Borno State, Sen. Modu Sheriff, has told a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt that he remains the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Sheriff, in a motion on notice filed before Justice Abubakar Liman, described the PDP’s Caretaker Committee headed by Sen. Ahmed Makarfi as an aberration and a “contraption” that was set up in defiance of valid court orders.


 
He urged Justice Liman to vacate an interim order of May 24 sacking and restraining him (Sheriff) from parading himself as the National Chairman of the PDP.

The order also restrained Prof. Wale Oladipo from parading himself as the National Secretary of the PDP.

Justice Liman made the order in a suit filed in the name of the PDP in which Sheriff, Oladipo, the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Inspector-General of Police and the Department of State Services were joined as defendants.

But in the motion on notice filed by their lawyer, Mr. Ajibola Oluyede, seeking to vacate the restraining order, Sheriff and Oladipo, described those who sued them in the name of the PDP as usurpers, who lacked “the authority and locus” to institute the suit on behalf of the party.

Sheriff and Oladipo are praying the court to hold that by a community reading of Section 223 of the 1999 Constitution and Articles 33(1) (a) and 35(1) of the PDP Constitution, only they are empowered to chair and preside over the party’s convention and all meetings through which available national offices can be filled.

They said, “The so-called caretaker committee or any other person acting under its authority is an aberration under the PDP Constitution and was constituted in breach of the mandatory provisions of Section 223 and 224 of the 1999 Constitution and has no capacity to institute this action in the name of the PDP.”

They urged the court to dismiss the suit filed against them for being an abuse of court process.