Hundreds of delegates, INEC officials and senior party figures converged on the Moshood Abiola Stadium as Abdulrahman Mohammed’s camp insisted the convention was lawful, while the Turaki faction rushed to the Supreme Court in a bid to stop a rival power grab that could reshape the PDP’s road to 2027.
ABUJA, Nigeria — The Peoples Democratic Party’s latest showdown has now moved from courtrooms to the Velodrome of the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja, where the Wike-backed bloc opened its national convention on Sunday with hundreds of delegates still arriving late into the evening.
2,632 delegates were on the list, drawn from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, as the faction pressed ahead with plans to install a new National Working Committee.
What began as a party reorganisation has hardened into a full-blown legitimacy battle.
Abdulrahman Mohammed’s camp, operating under the National Caretaker Working Committee, says it is acting within the law and has the backing of party members and regulators. Jungudo Mohammed, the faction’s publicity secretary, insisted the convention would proceed as planned and described it as “a defining moment” for the party’s democratic ideals. He also said, “All necessary arrangements have been concluded.”
That confidence is rooted in the court fight that has split the party down the middle.
On 9 March, the Court of Appeal in Abuja upheld earlier Federal High Court decisions that invalidated the Ibadan convention held in November 2025 and barred INEC from recognising Tanimu Turaki’s leadership. The appellate court held that the PDP had failed to comply with constitutional and procedural requirements, including proper notice to INEC and valid congresses in more than 14 states.
The court’s reasoning cut to the heart of the party’s internal chaos. It rejected the Turaki camp’s claim that the matter was merely an internal affair, and stressed that violations of the party constitution and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria could not be repackaged as internal politics.
Yet the Ibadan bloc has not folded.
Last week, the Turaki-led faction went to the Supreme Court seeking to restrain the Wike-backed group from conducting the Abuja convention. The appeal challenged the lower courts’ jurisdiction and asked for an injunction against any step that would validate the new exercise in Abuja.
The Wike camp, however, appears to be betting that time and numbers are on its side.
Wike said on the eve of the convention that the appeal filed by the Turaki faction would not stop the process. He argued that the party had already zoned offices and was moving with a consensus formula. In his words, “PDP will be on the ballot in 2027,” and the party, he said, was now presenting a unified front.
By Sunday evening, the message from the stadium was clear enough for anyone paying attention.
Channels Television reported that Abdulrahman Mohammed and Samuel Anyanwu emerged as substantive chairman and secretary, respectively, through consensus, alongside 19 other National Working Committee members. The same report said Wike told delegates that “the healing in the PDP had begun” and that the party would be on the ballot in 2027.
That is the political gamble now being sold to the PDP base: that a faction backed by Wike can turn a court-ravaged party into a functioning opposition machine before the next general election.
But the other side says the exercise is a charade.
Ini Ememobong, speaking for the Turaki-led side, told Premium Times that his camp would not attend because the convention did not align with the party constitution. He dismissed the Abuja gathering as unconstitutional and said the faction was not ready to lend it legitimacy.
The optics at the venue tell their own story.
Punch reported that INEC officials were present at the stadium, with Wike’s aide, Lere Olayinka, naming two national commissioners and several senior commission staff. The same report said delegates were undergoing accreditation and security checks as the convention got under way.
That detail matters.
If INEC attendance is confirmed and sustained, the Wike bloc can argue that its convention is not a shadow exercise but the real centre of party authority. If the Supreme Court later sides with the Turaki faction, the political and legal fallout could be severe, not just for the officers elected in Abuja but for the party’s public claim to cohesion.
There is also a deeper danger for the PDP.
The party is attempting to project strength while carrying two competing leadership structures, two claims to legitimacy and two separate readings of the law. One camp says reconciliation is still open. The other says the other side has crossed the constitutional line. For a party that wants to challenge the APC in 2027, the optics are brutal.
The bigger question is whether the Abuja convention settles anything or simply creates another round of litigation.
For now, the Wike-backed bloc has the venue, the delegates and the momentum. It also has the confidence that comes from acting as though the courts have already been politically outflanked. But the Turaki camp still has the Supreme Court, and in Nigeria’s party wars, the final whistle is often blown far from the convention floor.
What is unfolding in Abuja is not just a party convention. It is a test of whether the PDP can survive its own internal contradictions long enough to remain a credible opposition force. At stake is control of the machinery, the message and the moral authority of the umbrella itself.
