The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Monday dealt a fresh legal blow to Nigeria’s embattled main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, affirming a judgment that bars the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from recognising the outcome of the party’s contentious national convention held in Ibadan, last November.
The appellate court unanimously dismissed an appeal filed by the PDP against the October 31, 2025 ruling of Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which had restrained INEC from recognising, monitoring or giving any effect whatsoever to the results of that convention.
A three-member panel of the court resolved all four issues raised in the appeal against the party, holding that the appeal was entirely without merit. The panel ruled that Justice Omotosho acted squarely within his jurisdiction when he granted the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs, flatly rejected the PDP’s argument that the matter concerned only the internal affairs of a political party and therefore lay beyond the court’s reach, and held that the plaintiffs — party members who went to court to protect their democratic rights — had proper legal standing to institute the suit. The court also rejected the PDP’s claim that it had been denied fair hearing.
The appellate court awarded a cost of N2 million against the PDP, describing the appeal as frivolous. The panel further noted that rulings on eight other related appeals are still pending — a reminder that Monday’s judgment, significant as it is, represents only one chapter in what has become a sprawling legal saga over the soul of a party that once boasted of ruling Nigeria for 60 years.
A Party in Freefall: The Road to the Ibadan Convention
To understand Monday’s ruling, it is necessary to go back to the events that brought the PDP to this point — a journey marked by factional warfare, mass defections, rival suspensions, and a convention held in defiance of multiple court orders.
At the heart of the 2025 implosion were two rival blocs. On one side stood the faction loyal to Nyesom Wike — the former Rivers State governor who, despite remaining a nominal PDP member, was serving as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory in President Bola Tinubu’s APC-led federal government. Mr Wike’s camp, working through the party’s National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, challenged the legitimacy of the party’s internal processes, insisting that state congresses were not conducted in accordance with the PDP constitution and that any convention arising from them would be invalid.
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On the other side was the faction aligned with the PDP’s acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, and the party’s governors — led by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, who had emerged as the most vocal face of the anti-Wike bloc. That faction was committed to proceeding with the national convention as scheduled, arguing it was the only path to reorganising the party and repositioning it for the 2027 general elections.
The dispute spiralled rapidly. In a dramatic escalation, the Wike-aligned faction suspended Ambassador Damagum as national chairman, citing alleged incompetence and financial misconduct, and installed Mohammed Abdulrahman as acting chairman in his place. The Damagum faction responded in kind, suspending Mr Anyanwu and three other members of the National Working Committee for anti-party activities. By October 2025, two parallel party structures were openly competing for legitimacy, each holding its own meetings and issuing its own directives.
Several legal battles
It was against this backdrop of institutional chaos that the courts became the principal battleground. In October 2025, Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja issued an order halting the convention and restraining INEC from recognising its outcome — the very ruling that the Court of Appeal upheld on Monday. Days later, Justice Donatus Okorowo of the same court, in a separate suit filed by former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, issued a further order directing INEC not to recognise the convention. Then, just hours before the convention was due to open, Justice Peter Lifu, also of the Federal High Court in Abuja, issued yet another restraining order — his the most emphatic, described at the time as a “final order” stopping the convention entirely.
The Ibadan convention’s organisers, however, pointed to a counter-order from the Oyo State High Court. On November 4, 2025, Justice A.L. Akintola of that court ordered the PDP to proceed with the event, providing the legal fig leaf under which the convention’s organisers — led by Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Fintiri as chairman of the National Convention Organising Committee — pressed ahead regardless of the Abuja federal court orders.
Acrimonious Ibadan Convention
The Ibadan convention went ahead on November 15 and 16, 2025 at the Liberty Stadium, hosted by Governor Makinde. It elected Kabiru Turaki, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former Minister of Special Duties, as the PDP’s new national chairman, alongside a 20-member National Working Committee that included Taofeek Arapaja as national secretary and Ini Ememobong as national publicity secretary.
The convention, however, was accompanied by a moment of acute drama: the formal expulsion of some of the PDP’s most prominent figures. The list of those expelled included Mr Wike, former Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, National Secretary Anyanwu, and eight others — among them former senator Mao Ohuabunwa and a former national vice chairman, Dan Orbih.
Far from resolving the crisis, the convention deepened it. The Wike faction rejected the proceedings as illegal and the expulsions as null and void. Days later, police sealed the PDP’s national secretariat in Abuja following a violent confrontation between members of the two factions at the party’s headquarters. By the close of 2025, INEC formally announced that it would not recognise either faction, citing the outstanding court orders — a decision that had immediate electoral consequences, including the exclusion of the PDP’s candidate from the Ekiti State governorship ballot.
Governors Flee as Defections Mount
The convention crisis unfolded alongside an equally devastating haemorrhage of political heavyweights from the party’s ranks.
At the start of 2025, the PDP controlled 11 governorship seats. By year’s end, six governors had defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress or other parties — a loss of more than half its gubernatorial base in a single year. Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori was the first to go, taking with him the party’s entire Delta structure and his predecessor and 2023 vice-presidential candidate, Ifeanyi Okowa. Akwa Ibom’s Umo Eno followed in June, then Enugu’s Peter Mbah and Bayelsa’s Douye Diri in October, Osun’s Ademola Adeleke to the Accord Party, and finally Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara — a central figure in the Wike-Makinde conflict — who crossed to the APC in December. Premium Times
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the PDP’s presidential candidate in both 2019 and 2023, also formally resigned from the party, joining the African Democratic Congress. The party’s representation in the Senate plummeted from 36 members at the start of the legislative term to just 23 by the end of 2025.
The Appeal Court Process
With nine separate appeals before the Court of Appeal’s Abuja Division — arising from rulings by Justices Omotosho, Joyce Abdulmalik, and Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court — the appellate court became the venue where the legality of the Ibadan convention would ultimately be tested. The Nation
The court fixed February 12, 2026 for the hearing of arguments. After listening to submissions from lawyers representing the rival factions and other parties to the suits, the court reserved judgment and subsequently announced that it would deliver its decisions on Monday, March 9, 2026. Ahead of the ruling, PDP governors — who on Saturday called on party members to remain calm — made clear how much was riding on the outcome.
Monday’s ruling, which addressed the appeal against Justice Omotosho’s October 31 order restraining INEC, went comprehensively against the PDP. The appellate court held that the trial court was fully empowered to grant the reliefs sought; that the suit was not confined to internal party affairs, as the PDP had argued; that the plaintiffs had the requisite locus standi; and that the party’s claim of denial of fair hearing was unfounded.
The N2 million cost awarded against the party for a “frivolous” appeal added a pointed financial and reputational sting to the legal defeat.
With eight further appeals awaiting rulings from the same court, Monday’s outcome is likely to be only the opening salvo of a final judicial reckoning — one that will determine whether Kabiru Turaki’s election as national chairman is legally validated, whether INEC will ultimately recognise a reconstituted PDP leadership, and whether Nigeria’s once-dominant opposition party can salvage enough institutional credibility to mount a meaningful challenge at the 2027 polls.
For now, the PDP remains in legal limbo — a party whose internal war has been transferred almost entirely to the courts, and whose fate as a viable political force may be decided less by its politicians than by its judges.
*Additional reporting from Premium Times, Channels Television, Vanguard, Sahara Reporters and The Nation
