PDP: Crisis deepens as Wike-backed faction dissolves structures, Makinde warns against hijack
• Party factions trade blame
• Vaughan urges BoT, founding fathers to step in ahead of 2027
The leadership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deepened yesterday as a faction aligned with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, dissolved key zonal structures and announced a change in the party’s national convention date.
This came as the party’s management and staff, alongside the Peoples Democratic Institute (PDI), rejected a recent judgment of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, insisting it does not invalidate the authority of the Kabiru Tanimu Turaki-led National Working Committee (NWC).
The National Caretaker Committee of the Wike-backed PDP announced it had moved the party’s national convention to March 29 and 30.
Briefing journalists after a meeting of the committee in Abuja, the committee’s National Publicity Secretary, Jungudo Haruna Mohammed, said the resolutions followed extensive deliberations on recent developments within the party.
Mohammed recalled that the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had, at its meeting on Monday, announced March 28 and 29 as the dates for the convention.
However, he said the caretaker committee, after reviewing “certain factors”, resolved to make a slight adjustment to the timetable.
According to him, the convention will now be held on March 29 and 30 instead of the earlier March 28–29 dates.
He explained that the adjustment formed part of broader resolutions to ensure a smooth and credible convention process, adding that the changes would not undermine preparations already underway.
In another major decision, Mohammed disclosed that the NEC working committee had dissolved the PDP’s North-West, South-West and Plateau State zonal committees.
“The zonal committees of the party in these areas have been dissolved, and caretaker committees will be put in place to oversee party activities pending further directives,” he said.
He added that the timetable earlier approved by NEC for ward, local council, state and zonal congresses remains valid and will take effect as scheduled.
Mohammed also said the National Caretaker Committee would embark on wide consultations with party stakeholders before announcing the membership of the National Convention Planning Committee.
“These are the major resolutions reached at today’s meeting of the National Caretaker Committee,” he said, stressing that the decisions were taken in the overall interest of the party and with a view to strengthening its internal structures.
The moves come amid ongoing efforts by the PDP leadership to stabilise the party and prepare the ground for a successful national convention.
PDP staff reject Ibadan court ruling, reaffirm loyalty to Turaki-led NWC
In a strongly worded position paper, jointly signed by senior directors and officials of the PDP and PDI, the party’s administrative backbone reaffirmed its “recognition, loyalty and allegiance” to the Turaki-led NWC, describing it as the only duly constituted leadership of the opposition party.
The staff said the NWC emerged from a valid and legally convened national convention held in Ibadan on November 15 and 16, 2025, and sanctioned by all legitimate organs of the party.
They maintained that the convention and its outcomes remain binding and subsisting, notwithstanding the recent court pronouncement.
According to the statement, management and staff stand firmly by all resolutions reached at the Ibadan convention, arguing that the exercise was conducted in line with the PDP Constitution and established Supreme Court decisions affirming party autonomy over internal affairs.
“The entire management and staff of the PDP reaffirm our recognition, loyalty and allegiance to the Kabiru Tanimu Turaki-led National Working Committee, which was duly and legally elected at the party’s National Convention in Ibadan,” the statement said.
As custodians of the PDP National Secretariat, the staff said they would not recognise or align with any other leadership outside the Turaki-led NWC.
They also cited a “plethora of Supreme Court judgments” to argue that issues of party membership, leadership, congresses and conventions are strictly internal matters beyond the jurisdiction of the courts, questioning judicial interventions that seek to override decisions reached through party mechanisms.
The management and staff dismissed claims that the Ibadan convention was held in defiance of court orders, saying there was no legal encumbrance against the exercise. They explained that the convention followed a resolution of the National Executive Committee (NEC) at its 101st meeting on July 24, 2025, in line with Section 31(2)(a) of the PDP Constitution.
On compliance with electoral laws, they said the party fulfilled all statutory requirements under Section 84 of the Electoral Act, 2022, by duly notifying the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which they said attended the convention.
Referencing a recent Supreme Court decision in INEC v. SDP & Ors, the staff noted that political parties are only required by law to notify INEC of their conventions or congresses.
“It is only where such notice is not given that the law contemplates the nullification of a convention or congress,” the statement said, adding that this was not the case with the PDP’s Ibadan convention.
They expressed surprise at earlier judgments by Federal High Court judges in Abuja, which they said arose from litigation instituted by “two former members of the party”, despite Section 31(3) of the PDP Constitution making NEC decisions binding on all organs and members.
On the Ibadan judgment specifically, the staff described it as inconsistent with Supreme Court authorities on party autonomy, noting that the matter is already before an appellate court on the issue of jurisdiction.
They also faulted aspects of the ruling, alleging that the trial judge accused the party of disobeying court orders despite being informed of a subsisting Oyo State High Court directive for the PDP to conduct the convention.
More critically, they said the court granted reliefs not sought by the claimants, including what they described as an attempt to impose a caretaker committee on the party, insisting that the PDP Constitution does not empower unelected individuals or groups to assume party leadership.
On the status of the former leadership, the management and staff said the immediate past NWC is functus officio, having completed its tenure by effluxion of time, and therefore lacks any legal or constitutional basis to lay claim to party offices.
They commended the party leadership for promptly filing an appeal and securing a stay of execution of the Ibadan judgment, which they said has placed the ruling in abeyance and preserved the authority of the Turaki-led NWC pending determination of the appeal.
The staff expressed optimism that the appellate court would set aside judgments they said could undermine democratic gains and weaken opposition politics in the country.
Makinde vows PDP will not be hijacked for rival parties
Meanwhile, Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde has declared that no one would be allowed to hold down the Peoples Democratic Party to enable any other party to gain power.
Makinde spoke yesterday during the commissioning and handover of a new Oyo State PDP Secretariat donated by him and named after a former state chairman, Chief Omokunmi Mustapha, to the party’s national leadership.
The ceremony, held in Ibadan, was attended by members of the party’s National Working Committee led by national chairman Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, as well as members of the party’s Board of Trustees.
The governor said some individuals who took advantage of the PDP’s loss of power in 2015 to gain control of the party would no longer be allowed to undermine it.
He described the group as “illegitimate children” who had grown powerful and were bent on destroying the party, adding that they were expelled at the party’s convention in November 2025 in Ibadan.
Makinde expressed confidence that the judiciary would resolve the legal issues affecting the PDP, saying all outstanding matters would eventually come together and be decided in the party’s favour.
According to him, the “shenanigans and lies” of those seeking to hold the party hostage had endured for years but could no longer continue, insisting that truth would always trump falsehood.
The governor also took a swipe at the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, who recently said he was interested in developments within the Oyo PDP and at the national level. Makinde said Wike had no moral right to speak on the party in Oyo State or nationally if he had been unable to stabilise the PDP in Rivers State.
“I know that a lot of you are concerned about the PDP, asking what is happening in the party,” Makinde said.
“The illegitimate children in PDP grew up in 2015, had their time, and for 10 years, a decade, they practised their illegitimacy in the PDP. But they were expelled in November 2025. So, no more vagabonds in the PDP.
“Let me confess, I came into government in 2019 and towards 2023, I was yoked with them. But now, I have repented; I am no longer with them. But for them to hold PDP for another party to be in power, it is no, no, no.
“If a lie endures for 20 years, the truth will overtake it in one day. Liars can continue to peddle their lies; but I have absolute trust in Nigeria’s judiciary. I know they will do the needful. So, these court cases will come together at some point and the judiciary, being the last hope of the common man, will give justice to PDP.”
Vaughan urges BoT, founding fathers to intervene ahead of 2027 polls
Hopeful of a resolution, a two-term National Ex-Officio of the Peoples Democratic Party, David Vaughan, has called on the party’s founding fathers and Board of Trustees (BoT) to urgently step in to resolve the lingering leadership crisis threatening its survival ahead of the 2027 elections.
Vaughan, who was also a PDP governorship aspirant in Lagos State in 2023, made the call yesterday in Lagos.
He warned that unresolved internal disputes and factional struggles could further weaken the party and jeopardise its electoral chances.
“Political problems are better settled politically because politics may take a lifetime, but the life span of an event in political calculation can be very short.
“We don’t even have the time in PDP to ignore or do otherwise. The time we have now is for us to find a way around our current leadership problems.
“The Board of Trustees has a strong hold, they should find a way to come together since they always have a mechanism of solving their internal problems.
“The Board of Trustees should rise above inducements and wade in and intervene with honesty. We cannot continue like this. The BoT should wake up from sleep,” Vaughan said.
According to him, the same individuals who worked against the party under the G-5 in 2023 are now fighting among themselves.
Vaughan said the PDP’s failure to manage its crisis politically cost it victory in the 2023 presidential election, adding that divisions between camps loyal to Seyi Makinde and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, have continued to polarise party members.
Meanwhile, a PDP chieftain, Tony Ehilebo, has accused Wike of being responsible for the crisis in the opposition party.
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Speaking yesterday on Sunrise Daily on Channels Television, Ehilebo claimed Wike remains aggrieved over the outcome of the PDP presidential primary in 2022, which he lost to former vice president Atiku Abubakar.
“I want to speak directly to the FCT minister because he is the root of this whole issue. He was upset about what happened in 2023, so he worked for the All Progressives Congress (APC),” Ehilebo said.
He added that the grievance had lingered longer than expected, describing Wike’s actions as falling below the standards expected of him.
“As a young man, we look up to people who should set the standard, and what he is doing today doesn’t set the standard,” he said, warning Wike to be careful.
Guardian
