The leadership crisis within Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, has escalated as the National Working Committee led by Tanimu Turaki formally appealed a Federal High Court judgment that nullified the party’s November 2025 national convention.
Addressing journalists on Friday, Turaki asserted that despite the lower court’s ruling, the PDP remains legally intact and unshaken, with its fate now pending before the appellate courts.
Earlier on Friday, Justice Uche Agomoh of the Federal High Court in Ibadan invalidated the PDP National Convention held in Ibadan, Oyo State, on November 15, 2025. The court ruled that Turaki and other officials must cease presenting themselves as national officers of the party.
In a decisive move, the court further recognized a caretaker committee backed by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, as the legitimate interim leadership.
Justice Agomoh declared that the committee, chaired by Mohammed Abdulrahman with Samuel Anyanwu as secretary, remains the only recognized National Working Committee until a valid convention is conducted.
The convention, which had elected Turaki and his team to a four-year term, was supported by PDP governors. However, Wike and his allies, including Abdulrahman and Anyanwu, had maintained that they retained their positions as acting national chairman and national secretary, respectively, leading to the legal impasse now moving to a higher court.
