PDP leadership crisis: Supreme Court reserves ruling on legality of 2025 national convention

The Supreme Court of Nigeria on Wednesday reserved judgment in the appeal filed by the Kabiru Tanimu Turaki-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is contesting the nullification of its 2025 national convention.

A five-member panel of the apex court, headed by Justice Lawal Garba, said a date for judgment would be communicated to all parties after lawyers adopted their final written arguments.

The Turaki-led faction is asking the Supreme Court to set aside the March 9 judgment of the Court of Appeal, which affirmed earlier decisions that invalidated the party’s national convention held in Ibadan on November 15 and 16, 2025.

Arguing before the court, counsel to the faction maintained that the dispute concerns internal party administration, which they described as non-justiciable, insisting that all procedures required for the convention were duly followed.

But the lower courts had repeatedly ruled against the faction, nullifying the convention and restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognising its outcomes, while also issuing orders affecting control of the party’s national secretariat.

The Court of Appeal had earlier upheld two Federal High Court rulings in Abuja which stopped the PDP from proceeding with the convention until it complied fully with the Electoral Act and the 2022 Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties.

In one of the judgments, Justice James Omotosho held that the party failed to conduct valid state congresses as required by law and its constitution, rendering the planned convention defective.

In another ruling, Justice Peter Lifu restrained the party from proceeding with the exercise until former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, was allowed to participate in the national chairmanship contest, after finding that he was unlawfully excluded.

The legal battles were initiated by aggrieved party members, including state executives from Imo, Abia, and the South-South region, and have now escalated into a prolonged leadership dispute awaiting final determination at the Supreme Court.