The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took over the national leadership of the party yesterday with a call on party chieftains to seek forgiveness from God and Nigerians, for abusing the power given to them between 1999 and 2015.

With this development, the BoT has usurped the chairmanship position of the party, which is being contested by Sen Ali Modu Sheriff, Sen Ahmed Makarfi as well as Sen Ibrahim Mantu and Prof Tunde Adeniran.

The taking over by the BoT followed the re-opening of the party’s national secretariat, ‎Tuesday, by the police, after sealing it for nine days.

The BoT members, who arrived at the PDP secretariat, Abuja, by ‎12:29 pm, yesterday, went straight to the National Executive Committee (NEC) hall, where they held a meeting with the secretariat staff on latest developments in the party.

‎Addressing the staff, Sen Walid Jibrin, who is the BoT chairman, said they would run the party pending when the leadership crisis was resolved.

Jibrin explained that ‎the BoT would not take over anybody’s office at the secretariat, but that they would be meeting in any hall to run the party, adding that the action became necessary in order not to allow a vacuum.

“The BoT remains the only legal body to come in now. PDP will not die. We shall continue to do our best to return normalcy ‎in the party. We are making contacts and consultations, and we are not here to cast blame against anybody.

“We are not going into anybody’s office. We commend the IG (Inspector General of Police). The IG, having considered the importance of the PDP Constitution and the staff allowed this place to be opened,” he said.

Jibrin said‎ the leadership crisis would not affect the fielding of candidates for the forth-coming elections in Edo State, slated for October, 2016.

On how they got the legitimacy to take over the party, secretary of the BoT, Amb Ojo Madueke, said nobody had gone to court to challenge their ineligibility, stressing that the tenure of the National Working Committee (NWC) expired since May 24, 2016.

Madueke, however, said the Makarfi-led national caretaker committee was operating outside the secretariat.

However, a former deputy senate president, Ibrahim Mantu, who declared support for Makarfi’s leadership of the party, said the PDP would have led Nigeria for 60 years as projected by some of its leaders, if it had remained resolute with the philosophy, vision and mission of its founding fathers.

“We apologise to God and Nigerians who gave us power, which we got intoxicated with and collapsed. It is impunity that ruined our party. ‎We didn’t allow the voice of the people to work in our system. We didn’t say no to recklessness, imposition and impunity.

“But we are now born again. So we must tell God that we are now born again and we will do things differently. We must repent, we must change our attitude. The spirit of repentance is what we need now and we must all be born again,” he said.

•Text courtesy of Daily Trust.