How INEC ‘Settled’ PDP Leadership Dispute

The ongoing leadership battle within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be leaning decisively towards the Kabiru Turaki-led National Working Committee (NWC), according to senior party sources who interpret recent actions by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as practical confirmation of this structure’s legitimacy.

The ongoing leadership battle within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be leaning decisively towards the Kabiru Turaki-led National Working Committee (NWC), according to senior party sources who interpret recent actions by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as practical confirmation of this structure’s legitimacy.

This reading comes despite the public back-and-forth and challenges from the faction led by Senator Samuel Anyanwu.

PDP insiders contend that a series of INEC’s official actions have practically removed any doubt about which leadership the Commission recognizes.

INEC physically monitored the Osun governorship primary, with five officials present. The official notice for this primary was signed by the Turaki-led NWC, which emerged from the December 8 convention.

Party sources interpret INEC’s monitoring of the primary as a clear endorsement of the faction that organized it.

“From where we sit inside the party, this whole argument about legitimacy shouldn’t even exist. The Turaki-led NWC is the one INEC recognises, that’s the simple truth,” an insider told Vanguard.

“Even the official notice for the Osun governorship primary, which INEC physically monitored with five officials present, was signed by the Turaki-led team. That’s not hearsay; everyone saw what happened in Osogbo on Tuesday,” the insider added.

INEC also refused to act on a letter from the Anyanwu-led group seeking to postpone the Ekiti congresses and governorship primary.

The reason, according to party sources, was that the letter “didn’t meet basic requirements” as it was not signed by the party chairman and secretary officially recognized by INEC.

“What happened with the Ekiti issue is actually very straightforward. Anyanwu’s camp wrote to INEC claiming they had postponed the primary, but the letter didn’t meet basic requirements, it wasn’t signed by the chairman and secretary that INEC officially recognises. Naturally, INEC said they couldn’t act on it. Simple,” he explained.

The source also explained that the party had already acknowledged INEC’s earlier letter rejecting the Anyanwu group’s notice to postpone the Ekiti congresses and governorship primary, adding that they even have photos and documents to back this up.

“Then, a few days later, the Commission tried to distance itself from the version of the letter they had sent and which we had already acknowledged. But we have the photos showing they wrote it and transmitted it to us. It wasn’t even something meant for the press, so how it leaked out, we honestly don’t know,” he said.

“To be frank, INEC was even the one nudging the NWC to conduct the Osun primary quickly. They didn’t want us missing the legal window, because that would have left the party without a candidate, and imagine the signal that would have sent ahead of 2027,” he told Vanguard.

The internal sources also dismissed the intensity of the ongoing crisis, insisting that the situation does not constitute a “factional split” as defined by PDP history.

They contend that a true faction only emerges when attendees physically walk out of a convention and set up parallel structures, an event they claim did not occur in this instance.

“And this talk about ‘factions,’ let’s be serious. You don’t just wake up and declare that A, B and C have formed a new bloc. It doesn’t work like that in the PDP. The only time we truly had a faction was when those five governors walked out at Eagle Square before the 2015 elections. A faction emerges at the convention, physically, when people who are in attendance. walk out and set up their own convention and structures. None of that happened here. So, technically speaking, there is no faction in the PDP today,” he said

The PDP has been plagued by disputes following its December 8 convention, which led to a split in leadership.

Despite INEC’s practical actions, the party is awaiting a definitive judicial pronouncement. A court in Ibadan is scheduled to deliver a judgment next week on the legality of the December 8 convention, which is expected to provide formal clarity on the leadership question.