Year: 2025

A faction of the Peoples Democratic Party loyal to FCT Minister Nyesom Wike has moved to reassert its authority by calling emergency meetings of the party’s National Executive Committee and Board of Trustees for Tuesday. Both sessions will hold at the PDP National Secretariat in Abuja, signaling a rejection of the parallel convention staged in Ibadan over the weekend. The notice, issued by Samuel Anyanwu, a strong Wike ally, directed BoT members to meet at 11 a.m., while the NEC will convene at 2 p.m. Members were told attendance is compulsory as they will be addressing what the faction described as critical party matters. The Abuja meetings come as a counter to the Ibadan convention led by Umar Damagum, where Kabiru Turaki was named national chairman and several prominent figures—including Wike, Anyanwu, and former Ekiti governor Ayo Fayose—were declared expelled. That same convention announced the dissolution of party structures in Imo, Abia, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, and Rivers. However, divisions quickly surfaced. Governors Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa and Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau, who were physically present in Ibadan, later distanced themselves from the move to expel the FCT minister. Wike’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, circulated the invitation for the Abuja meetings on X on Monday. Earlier, he had dismissed the Ibadan gathering entirely, describing it as a political charade rather than a legitimate convention. “They went to Ibadan to start dirty December in November,” he wrote, adding that whatever resolutions came from the meeting were of no consequence and could be ignored.