The Supreme Court has held off on delivering its verdict in the ongoing leadership dispute within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after hearing appeals from a faction led by Kabiru Turaki.
The five-member panel, led by Justice Lawal Garba, said it would announce a date for judgment later, after lawyers from both sides wrapped up their final arguments.
At the centre of the case is the PDP’s national convention held in Ibadan in November 2025. Turaki’s group is asking the apex court to overturn earlier rulings that voided that convention.
They argued that the matter is strictly an internal party issue and shouldn’t have been taken to court in the first place.
According to them, the process that led to the convention followed due procedure.
But lower courts have repeatedly disagreed.
Both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal had earlier nullified the convention, citing violations of the Electoral Act and the party’s own guidelines.
The courts also barred the Independent National Electoral Commission from recognising the outcome and issued orders affecting access to the party’s national secretariat.
In one of the rulings, Justice James Omotosho said the PDP failed to conduct proper state congresses, which made the convention invalid. In another, Justice Peter Lifu stopped the party from going ahead with the exercise until former Jigawa governor Sule Lamido was allowed to contest for national chairman, ruling that he had been unfairly excluded.
The legal battle, triggered by aggrieved party members across several states and regions, has only deepened the PDP’s internal crisis one that now rests with the Supreme Court to resolve.
