The Chairman, National Caretaker Committee, NCC, of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has said national chairmanship aspirants with pending cases in court would not be disqualified from the race at the party’s convention in December. He made this statement in Kaduna while playing host to one of the aspirants and former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel.
Makarfi said, “If you play that game (disqualification of candidates based on pending EFCC case), that will be playing into the hands of the government in such a way that every one of us can be charged to court so that PDP will have no candidate.
Except you are convicted by a court of law, nothing can stop you from contesting, even the general election, let alone party issue. So, we shouldn’t play into the hands of those we want to unseat.”
Makarfi had reservations on the disqualification of some candidates by a section of the PDP Board of Trustees, BoT, in the South-West. He said, “The decision of the party is to be heard from the National Caretaker Committee and we didn’t say so and I can affirm that nobody was delegated to say so.
“Let me remind you that at the caucus meeting we had on Wednesday in Abuja, the BoT chairman categorically scolded those that did that and said they acted without directive and the action was ultra vires as far as the BoT was concerned.”
The senator said it is important not to assess people based on inconclusive cases and one can only be deemed unfit to contest if they are indicted by a court of law.
