The PDP Youth Vanguard (PYV)on Saturdayappealed to all members of the party to close ranks ‎ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The appeal followed the release of the timetable for the 2019 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The organisation therefore called for massive support from party members for the Ali Modu Sheriff led‎ PDP, saying it remains the duly recognised leadership of the party.

According to PYV, the ‎recent Court of Appeal judgment affirming Sheriff as the authentic national chairman of the PDP‎ is enough reason for all dissenting voices in the party to sheath their sword.

The PYV in a statement by its national coordinator, ‎Hon. Austin Ogidi and secretary, Gbenga Bamidele, said the judgment of the Appellate Court which sat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State automatically meant that the Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker is illegal and moribund.

They said: “Following that Appeal Court judgment Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff is the recognized national chairman and must be accorded the right to carry out the functions of a chairman, including the right to hold a national convention.

“We therefore urge the Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee to stop parading themselves as such because they have no grounds legally and even morally to carry out any function in the name of the party except a superior court says otherwise.‎

“Let us in very clear terms state that it is legally bound for Markafi and his cohorts now to submit and subject themselves to the authority of Sheriff as the duly recognized and authentic chairman of our great party by law.

“It is also imperative that the Markafi-led Caretaker Committee in the interest of peace and the need to save the soul of the party to quickly align with Sheriff in order for him to set about the task of holding a national unity convention as proposed by the Governor Seriake Dickson-led National Reconciliation Committee.”