Sheriff Vs Makarfi: Cross River PDP Officials Sing Discordant Tunes

BY UBON EKANEM (CALABAR)
Elected officials of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Cross River are singing discordant tunes on who to support in respect of the national leadership tussle bedeviling the party.
The State Chairman of PDP, Ntufam Inok Edim had told newsmen that the party is solidly behind, Senator Modu sheriff, but soon after that the State Publicity Secretary, Mr. Egbung Odama stunned newsmen in a different gathering when he announced that PDP in the state is heart and soul with Alhaji Ahmed Makafi’s faction.
To worsen matters, most appointees of the governor do not know where to stand as most of them were appointed based on recommendations from close friends of the governor without any clearance or approval from the party.
The governor is yet to declare his stand on the issue as he spends most of his time outside the country on the pretest of wooing foreign investors to the state.
While the controversy on which faction of PDP the state should support rages on, members of the party are of the opinion that their spirit is dampened as the party is drifting in an endless direction with no effort made even at the state level to clarify the official position of things.
An inside source at the state PDP secretariat hinted that the party is facing the threat of ejection over more than two years of unpaid rent as the state government is not funding the party the way it should.
The source stated that if everything was normal, most government appointees would have been remitting a percentage of their monthly emolument to the party, but a situation where their appointments were conceived without any input from the party further worsens the situation.
The rent issue the party is facing may not be a new thing as two weeks ago a court in the state had garnished the account of Calabar Urban Development Authority (CUDA) over N12 million rent arias of four years.