Fresh legal action has intensified the leadership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with the Kabiru Turaki (SAN)-led faction asking a Federal High Court in Abuja to order the immediate unsealing of the party’s national secretariat and other offices nationwide.
Court documents show that the faction filed a Motion on Notice seeking a mandatory injunction compelling the Inspector-General of Police and the Nigeria Police Force to withdraw officers, remove barricades and vacate the PDP headquarters at Wadata Plaza, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja, as well as its annex, Legacy House in Maitama.
The suit, filed through lead counsel Chief Chris Uche (SAN), follows the continued closure of the secretariat since November after violent clashes between rival PDP factions—one aligned with Mr Turaki and the other linked to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
The dispute escalated when both factions fixed meetings at the headquarters on the same day, prompting police intervention. Tear gas was reportedly deployed before the premises were sealed and cordoned off with barbed wire, effectively halting party activities at the national level.
Mr Turaki, who emerged as national chairman at a convention held in Ibadan, Oyo State, in November, has insisted that the sealing of the secretariat has no legal basis. The Wike-aligned faction, however, rejected the Ibadan convention, arguing that it violated subsisting court orders restraining the PDP from holding the exercise.
Ahead of the convention, Justices James Omotosho and Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, had issued orders stopping the PDP from conducting its scheduled November 15 and 16, 2025 convention. Despite this, an Ibadan High Court later granted an ex parte order permitting the party to proceed.
At the Ibadan gathering, the PDP announced the expulsion of Mr Wike, national secretary Samuel Anyanwu, factional chairman Mohammed Abdulrahman and eight others over alleged anti-party activities—decisions that have further deepened divisions within the party.
In the fresh suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/252/2025, the PDP, Mr Turaki and the chairman of its Board of Trustees, Senator Adolphus Wabara, are asking the court to restrain the police from what they described as continued interference in the party’s internal affairs.
An affidavit sworn by PDP national secretary, Taofik Arapaja, stated that the party duly held its elective convention in Ibadan and notified the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the outcome on November 17, 2025. He added that security agencies were only informed of an emergency stakeholders’ meeting scheduled for November 18 and requested to provide security.
According to the affidavit, “a large contingent of police officers led by the FCT Commissioner of Police stormed the secretariat, fired over 200 tear gas canisters and sealed the premises without any valid court order.”
The plaintiffs argued that the prolonged occupation of the secretariat has crippled the PDP’s operations, including administrative coordination, policy decisions and preparations for future elections. They maintained that the police must remain neutral, noting that the Nigeria Police Act 2020 does not empower the force to take sides in partisan disputes.
While the police have yet to respond publicly to the suit, legal observers say the case raises broader questions about the role of security agencies in political conflicts and the limits of their intervention in party affairs.
