Supreme Court has reserved judgment in the appeals brought by the Kabiru Turaki-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party challenging lower court decisions that nullified the party’s national convention held in Ibadan in November 2025.
The apex court, sitting as a five-member panel headed by Justice Lawal Garba, had scheduled today’s hearing after granting an accelerated hearing request from the Turaki faction, which had filed an affidavit of extreme urgency citing the need to resolve the matter before the Independent National Electoral Commission finalises its timetable for the 2027 general elections.
At the heart of the dispute is the PDP’s national convention held in Oyo State, which a three-member Court of Appeal panel ruled cannot stand, agreeing with an earlier Federal High Court judgment that the party had ignored key procedural requirements before organising the gathering.
Specifically, courts found that the PDP failed to first conduct state congresses in at least 14 states, a step required to produce valid delegates before a national convention can be held under party rules and national law.
Two separate appeals were consolidated for today’s hearing. The first pits the Turaki faction against a rival group aligned with FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, while the second concerns a suit filed by former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, who had challenged his exclusion from the national chairmanship contest.
Lamido’s suit led to a Federal High Court order that stopped the convention from going ahead in the first place.
Throughout the lower court proceedings, rulings consistently went against the Turaki group, invalidating the Ibadan convention, locking the faction out of the national secretariat, and barring INEC from recognising the leadership it produced.
Following those defeats, INEC withdrew its recognition of Turaki and his faction entirely.
The Turaki faction’s central legal argument is that the entire dispute constitutes an internal party matter and should never have been subject to judicial interference.
Opposing counsel had initially sought more time to file responses, but the Supreme Court slashed the requested fifteen days down to just five for all nine respondents, keeping the April 22 hearing date firm.
A rival faction proceeded with its own convention on March 29 and 30, 2026, which produced the Abdulrahman Mohammed-led PDP leadership, a development that could complicate the Supreme Court’s options depending on how it rules.
Legal commentators have noted that the apex court faces a critical choice between affirming the lower courts’ intervention in party affairs or stepping back on justiciability grounds, a stance that would leave the existing lower court orders in place without being formally overturned.
The judgment, when delivered, is expected to determine which faction holds legitimate control of one of Nigeria’s main opposition parties ahead of the 2027 electoral cycle.
