The internal crisis within Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), intensified significantly on Friday as the faction supporting the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, announced the dissolution of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT), previously chaired by former Senate President Senator Adolphus Wabara.
The faction cited a critical “loss of credibility and moral authority” for the removal.
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The drastic action took place at a meeting hosted by Wike at his Life Camp official residence in Abuja, where the factional Acting National Chairman, Alhaji Abdulrahman Muhammad, simultaneously inaugurated a new Board of Trustees to be chaired by former Senator, Mao Ohuabunwa
In his remarks before the meeting moved to a closed-door session, Muhammad framed the exercise as an urgent effort to restore discipline, constitutional order, and moral direction, which he lamented had been eroded under the party’s previous leadership structure.
Muhammad directly attacked the dissolved BoT, accusing it of losing “the moral balance expected of that noble institution.” He specifically noted that Wabara’s recent suspension by the Abia State Chapter of the party for alleged anti-party activities rendered his continued leadership “untenable.”
“The Board that was meant to be the moral compass of our party became divided and ineffective. The credibility of that leadership was heavily questioned, and its continued role in national advisory matters became impossible to sustain,” he said.
The Acting Chairman extended his criticism to the tenure of the ‘suspended’ National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Damagum, blaming him for what he described as the party’s moral decline and outright “disregard for judicial authority.” Muhammad accused Damagum of protecting individuals who violated the party’s constitution, choosing “convenience over the rule of law.”
“When any political party begins to disregard its own constitution and laws, it loses the very soul that holds it together. This was the painful reality we faced,” he declared.
Muhammad defended the faction’s use of the judiciary to force the reorganization, hailing the concerned party members who sought judicial redress to “save the PDP from itself,” an action he said led to the recent Federal High Court judgment paving the way for the BoT’s reconstitution.
He stressed the significance of the court’s intervention: “The court judgement was not an attack on the PDP; it was a reminder that no institution is greater than the law,” Muhammad noted, describing the decision as “a wake-up call to return to our roots and reawaken the values that once made the PDP the pride of Africa.”
The newly inaugurated BoT, whose members are yet to be unveiled, will serve as a “symbol of rebirth” and the “conscience and compass” of the PDP. Muhammad insisted that members were chosen for their integrity rather than factional loyalty: “This is not a reward for loyalty; it is a sacred trust. Your voices must be voices of unity, your advice rooted in fairness, and your actions must inspire confidence in our collective future.”
The Acting Chairman openly acknowledged that the party’s internal decay began before the 2015 elections when it abandoned its zoning principle, allowing personal ambition to override equity. He pledged that the new leadership would rebuild the party on foundations of transparency, justice, and adherence to law.
“We will rebuild this party with transparency. We will respect court judgements and the rule of law. We will conduct our congresses with fairness and integrity. We will restore public trust and make the PDP once again the moral voice of Nigeria’s democracy,” he pledged.
In a final warning, Muhammad insisted that the party would no longer hide under the excuse of “internal affairs” to justify impunity, noting: “Internal affairs must still operate under constitutional order. Party autonomy cannot mean lawlessness. We must reform or risk irrelevance.”
He concluded with a call for unity: “Let history record that when the PDP stood at the edge of the precipice, men and women of goodwill rose to pull it back. Together, we can heal our party and restore the PDP as the true hope of Nigeria’s democratic future.”