THE TRAGEDY OF APPOINTING A GODLESS HARAMITE, ALI MODU SHERIFF AS PDP CHAIRMAN - FEMI FANI KAYODE

On the 16th of February 2016, the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) adopted Senator Ali Modu Sheriff (aka SARS), a two-time ANPP Governor of Borno state, a former ANPP senator, the former Chairman of the All Peoples Congress (APC) Board of Trustees and the indisputable founder of Boko Haram as its Acting National Chairman.



Modu-Sheriff is also the erstwhile godfather and sponsor of Governor Shettima Ali, the present APC Governor of Borno state (until they fell out), he is a man that has a very deep and profound relationship and association with Idris Deby, the President of Chad and he is a man whose son is married to the daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Many have argued that his allegiance is more to the Republic of Chad than it is to Nigeria, that he is an agent of the Chadian intelligence agencies and that he is a Chadian citizen who often flaunts his Chadian passport. I cannot confirm the veracity of these assertions but one thing that I know is that most of Modu Sheriff’s funding and stupendous wealth emanates primarily from the Republic of Chad and that that country is as much a home to him as is Nigeria.

Yet it is not his connection with Chad that give me cause for concern. Rather it is his role in the establishment of Boko Haram. The truth is that appointing him as our Acting National Chairman is like appointing Jack the Ripper as the leader of the Conservative party in Victorian England.

Kudos must go to the elders in the PDP Board of Trustees, a number of State Party Chairmen and a number of key individuals in the PDP Ministers Forum for taking a courageous and noble stand by rejecting and resisting the imposition of this abominable monstrosity.

What Ali Modu Sheriff stands for and represents is utterly repugnant to every fiber of my being. Yet I have no objection to his being a member of the PDP simply because politics is a game of numbers. It is a game in which everyone, no matter how big or small, counts. If you want your party to grow and make progress you must accept the good, the bad and the ugly.

To this end when he left the APC and joined the PDP sometime back, I was one of those that gladly welcomed him into our ranks and defended him in the public realm. This was at a time when others criticized the party for accepting him.

There is however a world of difference between accepting him as one of the many leaders of the PDP and appointing him as the Acting National Chairman. Others may seek to justify such a course of action but I cannot, in good conscience, do so. To me it is a matter of principle. If we accept this then on what moral grounds did we condemn or oppose the APC or the APC-led Federal Government during the course of the last Presidential election?

If we are comfortable with the likes of Ali Modu Sheriff leading us then on what basis did we criticize and oppose President Muhammadu Buhari for appearing to support Boko Haram when he said ”an attack on Boko Haram is an attack on the north”? If we insist on Ali Modu Sheriff being our National Chairman then we may as well go and apologize to the APC for all our past criticisms and condemnations and join them.

On what basis can we accept as our National Chairman a man who established, encouraged, supported and nurtured an organisation that later metamorphosised into Boko Haram? This is a terrorist organisation whose ultimate objective is to turn Nigeria into an Islamic fundamentalist state by the use of terror and the force of arms?

On what basis can we accept a man to lead us whose Commissioner of Religious Affairs when he was Governor of Borno state, one Alhaji Buji Foi, was the de facto operational commander of Boko Haram. The man was later murdered by those closest to him after investigations into who and how Boko Haram was founded commenced.

On what basis can we accept as our National Chairman a man who helped to create an organisation that wishes to establish sharia as the norm in our country, repeal all our criminal and civil laws, ban all our civil liberties and human rights, proscribe the teaching of western education in our schools, turn our women into 6th century sex slaves and abrogate the secularity of our state.

On what basis can we accept as our leader a man who supported a group that wishes to suspend our constitution, wipe out the Christian faith and the practice of moderate Islam in our country and create an evil ISIL-type empire in our nation.

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