By Ayomide Otitoju
The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (People’s Democratic Party) has appointed a 13-member interim National Working Committee (NWC) to steer the affairs of the party following what it described as a leadership vacuum.
The decision was announced by BoT Chairman, Senator Adolphus Wabara, who said the move was in line with the party’s constitution and became necessary following the Supreme Court’s ruling which invalidated the Ibadan convention.
The interim committee is headed by former National Chairman, Tanimu Turaki, and was constituted during a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held by the Turaki-led bloc at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja.
Prominent party stakeholders in attendance included Governor Seyi Makinde, Professor Jerry Gana, former Niger State Governor Babangida Muazu, former Minister of Special Duties Tanimu Turaki, Senator Adolphus Wabara, and former Minister of Women Affairs Zainab Maina, among others.
The group also declared the Abuja convention, which produced the Abdulrahman Mohammed-led NWC, as null and void, insisting that a caretaker arrangement was necessary to address the leadership vacuum.
The development follows a Supreme Court judgment which dismissed the appeal filed by the Turaki-led faction over the Ibadan convention. The court held that the convention held in November last year violated an earlier Federal High Court ruling.
In the wake of the judgment, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, who leads a rival faction, declared that the ruling had effectively ended factional divisions within the party.
“The Supreme Court judgment has now made it known there is only one PDP. Faction does not exist any longer,” Wike said shortly after the ruling.
He also maintained that the Abuja convention which produced the Abdulrahman-led leadership remains valid, deepening the ongoing dispute over the party’s leadership structure.
The latest developments underscore continuing tensions within the PDP as rival blocs lay competing claims to the control of the party’s national structure.
