Breaking: Court Dashes Hope of Turaki-led PDP To Be Recognised By INEC, Dismisses Suit

Alex Enumah in Abuja

Hope of the Tanimu Turaki-led faction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) participation in the 2027 general election has been dashed, following the dismissal of the suit seeking to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise and publish the names of the leadership of the faction on the portal of the electoral commission.

Justice Salim Ibrahim of the Federal High Court, Abuja, in a judgement on Friday, held that the suit filed by the Board of Trustees of the PDP led by Senator Adolphus Wabara, was incompetent and lacking in merit. He consequently dismissed the suit.

Delivering ruling in a preliminary objection filed by the commission, Justice Ibrahim held that the plaintiffs lacked locus standi (the legal authority) to institute the suit and consequently struck it out for want of jurisdiction.

According to the ruling, the plaintiffs failed to establish that INEC had recognised the purported interim National Working Committee (NWC) instituted by the caretaker committee or that they had the authority to sue on behalf of the PDP, in the first instance.

Recall that following the nullification of the national convention of the PDP, which last year produced the Turaki-led national executive, the Wabara-led BOT in a bid to avoid a vacuum inaugurated an Interim NWC led by Turaki.

They subsequently approached INEC to upload the names of the interim NWC as the leadership of the PDP for the purpose of the 2027 general elections.

However, the electoral umpire had already recognized and uploaded the Abdulrahman Mohammed-led leadership, loyal to Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, as the leadership of the PDP.

The action occasioned the instant suit by the Wabara-led BOT, which has just been dismissed for lacking in merit.

Details later…