2027: Can PDP fight its way back?

*As party leaders invoke history, faith and defiance to rally supporters in Abuja, a bruising court setback exposes the legal and political hurdles confronting Nigeria’s main opposition on the road to 2027.

By Luminous Jannamike, ABUJA

The message was unmistakable: the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would not go quietly. Beneath the bright lights of a packed stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja, applause repeatedly drowned out whispers of collapse as former governors, Board of Trustees members, state chairmen and loyalists gathered under the shadow of another leadership crisis. 

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There was no attempt to pretend that all was well. Yet every speech carried the same underlying refrain; that the party had stared into the abyss before and lived to fight another day.

The gathering came at a defining moment for a political organisation that once dominated Nigeria’s landscape for 16 uninterrupted years but now finds itself fighting on multiple fronts. 

Beyond the familiar contest with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the PDP has wrestled with internal fragmentation, high-profile defections, competing claims to leadership and an expanding list of legal battles that threaten to distract it from the larger objective of rebuilding ahead of the 2027 general election.

For many in the hall, therefore, the battle was no longer simply about who occupies the party’s national secretariat. It was about preserving the legitimacy, identity and electoral viability of Nigeria’s biggest opposition platform.

That reality hung heavily over the meeting. Yet politics seldom rewards emotion alone. Even as party leaders projected confidence inside the conference hall, events outside it were unfolding rather differently.

Rallying the Faithful

Chairman of the PDP Interim National Working Committee, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN), wasted little time setting the tone.

Thanking stakeholders for responding to the invitation despite the short notice, Turaki said the turnout itself was proof that predictions of the PDP’s political extinction had once again been exaggerated.

“There comes a time in the life of a human being when challenges and ups and downs become the order of the day,” he told the gathering, arguing that adversity had become part of the party’s political history.

His repeated references to the party’s turbulent past were deliberate. Rather than dwell exclusively on the present crisis, Turaki took members back to the bitter Ali Modu Sheriff-Ahmed Makarfi leadership battle that almost tore the PDP apart several years ago.

For seasoned party faithful, the comparison was instantly recognisable. The Sheriff-Makarfi confrontation was one of the most turbulent chapters in the PDP’s history, dragging through multiple courts before eventually ending in judicial clarity that reunited the party ahead of the 2019 elections. 

By invoking that episode, Turaki was doing more than recalling history. He was inviting members to believe that today’s conflict could ultimately follow a similar trajectory.

Whether current political and legal realities will produce the same outcome, however, remains an altogether different question. Still, Turaki was unequivocal.

“What we are now witnessing in our party is even a child’s play,” he declared, expressing confidence that the PDP would once again emerge stronger.

His broader message was equally revealing. Without naming the ruling party, Turaki lamented what he described as a growing pattern of instability across opposition parties, suggesting that many of the crises now confronting opposition platforms could be traced to external political interference.

“It is regrettable,” he said, that tensions affecting opposition parties often lead “back to the footsteps of the party in government.”

Whether that claim resonates beyond the PDP faithful is open to debate. But politically, it served an important purpose: shifting the conversation from internal blame to external pressure.

The Defence Strategy

Beyond rallying emotions, Turaki’s speech also sought to neutralise perhaps the greatest fear within the PDP; that the unresolved leadership dispute could jeopardise the party’s participation in the next general election.

“The essence of every political party is to legitimately capture power. You cannot capture power unless you are on the ballot,” he reminded stakeholders.

He then delivered what was arguably the most significant political assurance of the meeting.

“I want to tell you that PDP shall be on the ballot for all rounds of the 2027 elections,” Turaki declared, insisting that the party would present candidates from the presidential election down to the State Houses of Assembly.

For members increasingly anxious about the legal consequences of the leadership tussle, the declaration was intended to restore confidence.

More importantly, it highlighted the central political calculation now driving the party’s interim leadership: whatever disagreements remain unresolved internally must not be allowed to create the impression that the PDP risks exclusion from the electoral contest.

Turaki’s repeated invocation of the Sheriff-Makarfi crisis reflected that strategy. Rather than deny the gravity of the present conflict, he sought to normalise it, reminding party faithful that institutional crises have become almost cyclical in the PDP’s history; and that survival, rather than stability, has often defined the party’s political character.

To reinforce the fighting spirit, he borrowed from the late educationist Tai Solarin’s famous refrain.

“So let them push us if they like,” Turaki said. “We have the strength to push back.”

The applause that followed suggested his audience wanted, perhaps needed, to believe exactly that.

The Moral Reckoning

If Turaki focused on strategy, former Niger State Governor and Secretary of the PDP Board of Trustees, Babangida Aliyu, turned the conversation inward.

Commending the interim leadership for pursuing what he described as the lawful path through the crisis, Aliyu argued that difficult moments often reveal an organisation’s true character.

“We have been challenged,” he observed. “Many a times, you will never know the strength that you have until you are thoroughly challenged.”

But the former governor reserved his sharpest criticism for politicians who repeatedly abandon one political platform for another in pursuit of personal ambition.

Describing them as ‘nomadic politicia’, Aliyu said many had treated the PDP as a temporary vehicle rather than a political home, only to discover that greener pastures were not always greener.

“It is unfortunate that people are not patient enough,” he said, warning against those who attempt to ‘play God’ by assuming they alone determine political destiny.

Aliyu’s intervention reflected a deeper anxiety within the PDP; that years of defections have not merely depleted the party’s ranks but have steadily weakened the culture of institutional loyalty that once held it together.

For him, the challenge was no longer simply about those who had left. It was about rebuilding a political tradition capable of keeping ambitious politicians invested beyond electoral convenience.

Many of those who believed the PDP would collapse because they abandoned it, he argued, now find themselves navigating uncertainties of their own.

Drawing heavily on morality and faith, Aliyu insisted that politics ultimately answers to a higher authority than personal ambition.

“Our creator judges you by what is in your heart, not what is in your pocket or what is in your mouth,” he said, expressing confidence that members who had remained steadfast would ultimately be vindicated.

It was an intervention that mixed politics with conscience, suggesting that the PDP’s current ordeal was not merely organisational but also moral. His appeal was for patience, introspection and renewed discipline; an acknowledgement, perhaps, that many of the party’s deepest wounds had been self-inflicted.

Anger, Gratitude and Greed

If Aliyu spoke with measured disappointment, Chairman of the PDP State Chairmen’s Forum, Tony Aziegbemi, spoke with barely concealed anger.

His target was politicians who, in his view, rose to prominence on the platform of the PDP only to later ridicule the same institution that made their careers possible.

Recalling a televised remark by one such politician urging that the PDP be ‘killed’, Aziegbemi described the comment as a striking example of political ingratitude.

According to him, the party had repeatedly bent its own rules to elevate individuals beyond what their political records ordinarily justified, only to receive hostility in return.

His remarks exposed an enduring grievance within the PDP; that many of its greatest political setbacks have come not from opponents across the aisle, but from beneficiaries within its own fold whose ambitions eventually outgrew their commitment to the platform.

It is a complaint now heard with increasing frequency among party loyalists, many of whom believe the PDP’s recurring crises have often been manufactured from within rather than imposed from outside.

Aziegbemi then broadened his criticism into a wider commentary on governance, corruption and the moral burden of political power.

Invoking Leo Tolstoy’s celebrated short story, How Much Land Does a Man Need?, he questioned what he described as the endless appetite for wealth among sections of Nigeria’s political elite.

The literary reference was more than rhetorical flourish. It became a metaphor for the widening gulf between extraordinary personal accumulation and widespread public deprivation.

Referring to reports of multiple properties confiscated from politically exposed persons, Aziegbemi wondered how public officials could continue acquiring enormous assets while millions of Nigerians struggled with hunger and economic hardship.

“Where we are is the right place to be,” he assured party faithful. “Don’t be scared. Don’t have doubts. We will get there.”

It was a speech that sought not only to rally the faithful but also to reclaim the PDP’s moral argument as an opposition party seeking relevance in a country weighed down by economic hardship.

The Legal Blow

But while optimism dominated proceedings inside the Abuja meeting hall, the courtroom had already delivered a sobering reminder that political conviction and legal success do not always travel together.

Only days earlier, penultimate Friday, Justice Salim Ibrahim of the Federal High Court in Abuja struck out the suit filed by the Adolphus Wabara-led Board of Trustees seeking to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise the Kabiru Turaki-led Interim National Working Committee as the PDP’s authentic leadership.

More significant than the financial penalties imposed was the signal the judgment sent.

The court did not determine who the authentic leaders of the PDP are. Instead, it dismantled the legal route adopted by one faction to secure official recognition.

Justice Ibrahim held that the Board of Trustees lacked the locus standi to institute the action on behalf of the PDP.

He further ruled that the party itself never authorised the suit, leading to the PDP being struck out as a plaintiff.

The judge also held that the action amounted to an abuse of court process because it sought to re-litigate issues already decided in previous proceedings.

In addition, he observed that the suit had become largely academic since INEC had already monitored the convention that produced the rival leadership recognised by the commission. He equally faulted the decision to commence the action by originating summons despite the existence of substantial disputed facts requiring oral evidence.

The consequences were costly. Justice Ibrahim awarded N70 million in costs against the plaintiffs in favour of the defendants and imposed an additional N10 million personally against the plaintiffs’ counsel, explaining that the sanctions were intended to discourage frivolous pre-election litigation.

Legally, the judgment resolved less than many had anticipated. Politically, however, it reinforced an uncomfortable reality: institutional legitimacy cannot be secured through political declarations alone, and courtroom strategy has now become as critical to the PDP’s future as political mobilisation.

The Wabara-led Board of Trustees has rejected the ruling, describing it as inconsistent with earlier appellate decisions and indicating that it will challenge the judgment through the appellate process. That appeal ensures the legal contest is far from over.

The Big Picture

Ironically, both sides of the PDP divide now invoke history in defence of their positions.

One faction points to previous victories over internal rebellions as evidence that the party’s survival instinct remains intact. The other insists that the law will ultimately vindicate its position.

Between those competing narratives stands an electorate increasingly less interested in procedural victories than in whether the opposition can present a united, disciplined and credible alternative ahead of 2027. That may prove to be the PDP’s greatest challenge.

Political parties rarely collapse because they lose elections alone. More often, they decline when internal disputes begin to consume the energy that should ordinarily be invested in building public confidence. For the PDP, the contradiction could hardly be more striking.

Inside the conference hall in Abuja, party leaders projected confidence, resilience and optimism. They spoke the language of history, perseverance and eventual triumph.

Inside the courtroom, however, the language was altogether different; one of legal standing, procedural defects, abuse of process and institutional recognition.

Both conversations matter. Both will shape the PDP’s immediate future. The Abuja meeting demonstrated that the opposition party has not surrendered its fighting spirit. The Federal High Court, however, reminded it that determination alone cannot settle questions of legitimacy.

As the countdown to the 2027 general election gathers momentum, the PDP’s defining battle may no longer be against the ruling party alone. 

It may first have to convince Nigerians, and perhaps even itself, that it has finally mastered the divisions within its own house. Only then can its battle cry of resilience carry the political weight its leaders so passionately claimed in Abuja.

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