The Governor of Bayelsa State who doubles as the chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) reconciliation committee, Seriake Dickson, has described the crisis in the opposition party as self-inflicted.

According to Ceoafrica, Governor Dickson, who spoke with reporters in Abuja at the weekend, said those who are currently blackmailing Ali Modu Sheriff were the same people who urged him to come on board as national chairman.

He said he was a lone voice while opposing the emergence of Sheriff at the Port Harcourt national convention, adding that he had to intervene to broker peace for three months tenure for Sheriff when he was eventually made chairman and crisis erupted.

“I spent three weeks in Abuja talking to key stakeholders; making a case to prevent a division in the party. Because of those interventions, we now agreed to give him (Sheriff) a three months’ period of grace within which to conduct convention and leave.

“But towards the completion of the three weeks grace period, the people who brought him again went and encouraged him to re-contest, that nothing would happen. They were more interested in being in control of a national chairman than the structures of the party and rebuilding the party. They planned, did all kinds of things behind our back and they zoned things directly to Sheriff,” he also said.

According to Dickson, the opposition party had come to a threshold when the right political decision should be taken to end the prolonged crisis which was why his committee recently came up with a report recommending a harmonised national convention.