The Nation Newspaper
- Power blocs in fresh plots as more defections loom
- Legal landmines threaten party’s revival bid
The Senator Bukola Saraki-led committee set up by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to revive the party is already facing threats that could derail its assignment.
An expanded meeting of PDP Governors’ Forum and other stakeholders in Abuja last Sunday night resolved to give Saraki and former and serving governors the mandate to redress PDP’s weakening chances ahead of the 2027 general elections, put a brake on high level defections, ensure a rancour-free National Executive Committee meeting on May 27 and reposition the party.
However, some PDP stakeholders are complaining that the actions and utterances of some party members are not likely to help the PDP resolve its multiple problems.
Party sources cited the recent threat by the leadership of the South East Zone of the party to defect should the PDP keep preventing the zone’s nominee for the position of National Secretary, Sunday Ude-Okoye, to assume office as replacement for Senator Samuel Anyanwu.
The sources named Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah as the arrow head of the agitators, alleging that it was an excuse for the group to switch to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Besides, the concerned PDP members fear that the continued crisis over the office of national secretary may lead to technical electoral losses as the party prepares for the February 21, 2026 election in the six councils of the Federal Capital Territory.
The PDP has always won in the FCT but is now facing considerable threat from the APC.
Mbah, along with Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal; Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang; former Bayelsa governor Seriake Dickson; former Gombe governor Ibrahim Dankwambo and former Abia governor Okezie Ikpeazu, is a member of the Saraki committee.
The Enugu State chairman of APC, Chief Ugochukwu Agballah, who received more than 150 defectors from the Labour Party and PDP within the last one month, has vowed to try to block Governor Mbah from crossing to APC, alleging that APC already has a more competent and capable candidate to take over the state’s Government House in 2027.
Apart from widespread speculations about the likely defection of Governor Mbah and at least one northern governor from the PDP, contending blocs within the party are mobilizing their foot soldiers and legal brains in preparation for confrontations that may threaten the objectives of the Saraki Committee.
Said a party source: “It has continued to seem as if every step towards finding solution is swiftly followed by a step towards perdition. If care is not taken, vested interests, proxy wars, subsisting court judgments and looming entanglements with difficult legal hurdles and more defections appear set to weaken PDP further before 2027.”
Also, following the alleged provision of ‘housing loans,’ by one of the governors opposed to Senator Anyanwu’s retention as National Secretary, 83 employees at the PDP national secretariat have filed a petition with the party hierarchy to express their opposition to Anyanwu.
The letter dated May 14, 2025 and entitled ‘Clarion Call for Stability and Survival of Our Party, PDP” has thrown the entire staff at the PDP national secretariat into the storm that used to be a proxy war for party heavyweights only.
The Zonal Secretary of the PDP in the South East, Mr. Emmanuel Mba, said Governor Mbah and his supporters who are now being defined as ‘South East PDP stakeholders” should just take their exit from PDP instead of expecting the entire South East to go with them on the basis of their demand for replacement of Anyanwu.
Giving in to their demand, he said, would only trigger too many legal hurdles that could cause more trouble for the party.
“The issue here that we are talking about is somebody was elected as national secretary at the {national} convention; he has a four-year tenure which ends in December 2025; he wrote to the party for leave of absence to run for an election and returned to his position.
“But while he was away, a group of guys in Enugu led by Governor Peter Mbah, who is supposed to focus on the governance of Enugu State, said they want to remove him and bring somebody,” he said in a television interview in Abuja.
He added: “That you are threatening to leave the party does not mean we should do the wrong thing and succumb, because that would be destroying the party completely.
“Because if we allow somebody that is not elected to sign a document on behalf of someone that is elected, it is a call for disaster, a call for any opposition to go to court and invalidate our nominations.
“So, this is a constitutional thing. If you want to defect to the APC, you don’t need to threaten us that you want to defect.”
Also speaking a three-term member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Teejay Yusuf, said although the Saraki committee balances various interests within the PDP, powerful forces within the party were still hell-bent on taking huge risks solely to try to counter one another’s influence.
“We are in opposition but we are consciously laying booby traps for ourselves and there are genuine reasons to be very nervous about the PDP NEC meeting scheduled for May 27,” Yusuf told The Nation in Abuja.
He said: “First of all, there was the Supreme Court ruling on the National Secretary position, which is being arbitrarily misinterpreted. And there is a Federal High Court judgment that cannot be vacated but the governors have decided that they would rather recognise someone else as National Secretary.
“While you cannot cherry-pick a court ruling, there are also constitutionally-outlined processes of removal which is not being considered at all. So, why are we going into that kind of crisis when you have only a short time before a national convention where you can remove a National Secretary legally?
“Look at the preparations for the FCT council elections where the council chairmen that PDP had have crossed to the APC to seek re-election, because they said that if the wrong person signs their nomination papers for INEC, somebody in the opposition will simply go to court and quash it on the grounds that they were not duly nominated. Why are we taking such risks?”
