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From Ismail Omipidan, Abuja
In line with the 2027 election timetable released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), two major political parties, All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the weekend, held their national conventions to elect members of their National Working Committees (NWC), who will pilot the affairs of the two parties for another four years, provided party stakeholders allow them to serve out their terms, as provided for in the party’s constitution.
Of the two conventions, the gathering of the PDP leadership at the Velodrome of the MKO Abiola National Stadium appears to be one that generated the most interest from political observers, public affairs commentators and Nigerian youths who have been debating issues concerning the convention on the social media, particularly X, formerly known as Twitter, perhaps for obvious reasons. One of such reasons, Daily Sun gathered, was the attendance of persons initially seen as being opposed to the FCT minister, Nysom Wike. Some of these persons are: former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido; former Kaduna Governor, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi; and former President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, among others.
Also, not even the threat of moving to the Supreme Court by a faction led by the two remaining governors on the party’s platform, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State and Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, as well as the NWC members elected at the last November Ibadan convention, the outcome of which has since been nullified by both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal, could deter the organisers from going ahead with the convention.
Findings by Daily Sun also show that the faction led by Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, SAN, had on Friday filed a petition at the Supreme Court, where it is seeking, among other things, to overturn the previous judgments of the courts. Will the Supreme Court listen to them?
Daily Sun gathered that the PDP leaders who hitherto were not with Wike but who eventually attended last Sunday’s convention reasoned that, since political parties have only up to May 10, 2025, to submit the electronic register of members to INEC, and also have till the end of May to equally conduct primaries to select candidates for presidential and governorship contests, including elections into the state and federal legislative houses, it would be foolhardy for the party to await the outcome of the Supreme Court case before it embarks on the political activities earlier outlined, which are the necessary conditions precedent to participating in next year’s general election. Interestingly, one of the PDP leaders who has been at the forefront of ensuring that the aggrieved parties see reason to reconcile and move the party forward is Saraki.
And since after Sunday’s convention, he has been speaking in the media and also at several top-level meetings in Abuja to rally support for the convention and for the Turaki-led group to prioritise the interest of the teeming members of the party who are aspiring to various elective posts, insisting that the PDP needed to be in a legally recognised position to field candidates in next year’s election.
Saraki further argued that the primary consideration for all the feuding leaders of the PDP, whichever group they belong to, is taking all necessary steps to ensure the party is on the ballot in the general election, and that it presents validly nominated candidates for the elections, not the ones that would be thrown out by the courts after winning the contest.
According to him, since a key step towards being on the ballot is having in place members of NWC that are recognised by INEC, he is urging all party leaders to utilise the opportunity of Sunday’s convention to scale the hurdle of having a leadership that is recognised by INEC. Thus, for him, it is not a question of whether one agrees with Wike, it is a question of whether one desires that the PDP presents validly nominated candidates by the end of May.
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To this end, Saraki has led several discussions with the various parties to the PDP crisis, trying to preach that a “spirit of give-and-take” must be imbibed. He reminded them that if his advice had been taken about the paths to be taken before the nullified Ibadan Convention, the party would not be where it is today.
But many have wondered what Saraki’s motivation is for insisting that the PDP needs to do all that is legally necessary to field candidates in next year’s elections. To this, sources close to the former Kwara State helmsman noted that he believes the only platform capable of presenting a solid opposition to the ruling APC is the PDP, with its broad and nationwide structure, adding that the PDP has name recognition, brand popularity and acceptability among the electorate across the country.
One of the sources further said, “Saraki’s supporters back in Kwara have affirmed that they want all their aspirants to contest elections on the PDP platform as it is their sure bet for regaining power in Kwara State. A meeting of the party’s stakeholders in Ilorin last Wednesday agreed that its delegates from the state should attend the Abuja convention and that if they observe that INEC was present and other necessary recognition to validate the activities and resolutions from the convention are present, they will hold another meeting to finally decide on their political future. It is believed the PDP is still very popular in Kwara State and Saraki’s supporters do not want their mobilisation efforts to suffer a setback by having to start all over again on another platform. Since all politics is local, the former Senate President is determined to listen to his supporters and pursue plans at the national level that will give maximum advantage to his supporters back home. Thus, the survival of PDP and its ability to field candidates in the 2027 polls is important to Saraki.
“Saraki is calculating on the fact that the party is best placed to benefit from the likely implosion in the over-loaded APC bus. He believes many of the defectors to the APC and others who have gone to displace or put at a disadvantage will either return to the PDP or work for the PDP. As an indication of the plausibility of this calculation, a prominent gubernatorial aspirant who previously left the PDP for APC in Nasarawa State, David Ombugadu, has returned to the PDP. Many others are said to be waiting for clear indications that the PDP would field candidates in the 2027 general election without any inhibition, and they would return to the platform. And as Saraki predicted, INEC was fully represented by almost a dozen top officials to monitor the PDP convention last Sunday. As of Monday, the INEC portal has reflected the names of the new PDP NWC members, led by Hon. Abdulrahman Mohammed Takushara, the newly elected national chairman. Also, the false claim that the convention would endorse President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a second term has now proved to be an empty lie. No such issue featured at the convention. Like the organisers have insisted, the convention was just for the purpose of electing new NWC members who will now provide opportunities for the party to field candidates in all elections in 2027 and beyond. It is believed that the new NWC, which validly holds the party’s mandate, may move to withdraw all cases in courts filed in the party’s name. This move will be in line with the three tasks contained in Saraki’s charge to the new party leadership during his speech at the convention. So, all these and more are the reasons Saraki is rallying support for the outcome of the convention,” the source added.
As it stands, Daily Sun also gathered that the former Senate President has since mandated the new party leadership to concentrate on reconciliation efforts as a way of bringing old and new members into the fold, strengthening the on-going membership registration exercise, conducting primaries through a credible process that will ensure that even those who lose out will have no reason not to support the eventual winners, and going all out to win the 2027 elections for the PDP across all levels.
He believes that if these “strategic assignments” are “honestly and vigorously” pursued, it would lead to a full resurrection of the PDP. Saraki further opined that a resurrected PDP is capable of winning back several of the states whose governors defected to the APC and some others that the ruling party won in 2023.
As for his critics, Saraki has called on them to be fair in understanding his position and stop judging him by their own values, insisting that there is no other party with the name recognition, national acceptance and strong brand that can provide a credible and strong alternative to the ruling APC better than the PDP, and as such the PDP must not be allowed to die, saying the quickest way to kill it is to keep it out of the ballot in 2027.
On the zoning arrangement in the country, Saraki believes the South should be allowed to complete its eight years in line with the spirit of rotation and that there are many qualified Southerners who are interested in the presidency and that a repositioned PDP could present a solid platform for such candidates to come into the race if they so choose, adding that in 2031, God willing, there should be no ambiguity about the fact that only northerners should contest for the post of president of Nigeria.
All said and done, Saraki may have decided not to spend his resources by contesting any position in the present dispensation because of his stand on rotation. What is, however, certain is that he has been busy rebuilding his structure back home in Kwara and seeking to get his group to reclaim control of Kwara State. If he accomplishes that and PDP resurrects, then Saraki will most likely make his position known ahead of 2031.
