As parties race to beat the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) deadline for the nomination of candidates for the 2027 general election, AZIMAZI MOMOH JIMOH writes that the ambitions of 8,200 aspirants on the platform of the crisis-ridden People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) may be quashed as the different factions stick to their guns and plot each other’s fall.

What once appeared impossible in Nigeria’s political history is gradually unfolding before the nation’s eyes. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the political machine that ruled Nigeria for 16 uninterrupted years and once controlled a majority of states across the federation, is now struggling to convince even its own members that it still exists as a coherent political force. Its once intimidating Governors’ Forum has collapsed under the weight of defections, internal betrayals and endless litigation. Its national leadership is split into bitter factions; its secretariats are disputed; the courts have nullified its conventions. And now, more than 8,200 aspirants who purchased nomination forms under different factions of the party are trapped in a dangerous political limbo with the 2027 elections approaching rapidly.

For many political observers, the crisis has moved beyond ordinary factional disagreements into what increasingly resembles the slow political burial of Nigeria’s main opposition party.

At the centre of the tragedy are rival camps loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike; former Minister of Special Duties, Kabiru TanimuTuraki; Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde; Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, and a fractured Board of Trustees (BoT) struggling to retain relevance amid judicial confusion.

Only a few years ago, the PDP controlled 13 states and remained the most formidable opposition platform in the country. Today, following a wave of defections and political realignments, the party has become a shadow of itself, with many of its surviving leaders openly threatening to leave. The symbolic collapse of the PDP Governors’ Forum after the reported movement of Makinde and Bala Mohammed to the Alliance for Progressive Movement (APM) has further deepened fears that the opposition party may no longer recover from its present wounds.

Perhaps the most embarrassing moment for the PDP came with the dramatic announcement by the Turaki-led Interim National Working Committee (INWC) granting automatic presidential clearance to former President Goodluck Jonathan for the 2027 elections, despite the fact that Jonathan had neither publicly declared interest nor participated in any party process. The announcement stunned many party members and exposed the level of desperation within sections of the party leadership.

A member of the screening committee and former Niger State governor, Muazu Babangida Aliyu, defended the decision, insisting that Jonathan’s political credentials made further screening unnecessary.

“The party had already given a presidential aspirant a waiver from screening,” Aliyu said after the exercise in Abuja. “Like I said in the beginning, he was deputy governor, became governor, became vice president and later president; so we didn’t see anything that needed screening.”

But critics within the party described the development as a humiliating sign that the PDP had moved from being a platform where politicians fiercely competed for tickets to one now pleading with reluctant figures to rescue it from extinction.

Behind the public drama lies a deeper crisis involving over 8,200 aspirants across the country who may eventually discover that the tickets they purchased are politically worthless. Investigations revealed that the Wike-backed faction conducted parallel screenings involving over 5,000 aspirants for various elective offices, while the Turaki-led camp processed about 3,200 aspirants under its own structures. Many of the aspirants have spent huge sums purchasing nomination forms, mobilising supporters and financing consultations without certainty over which faction would eventually gain legal recognition.

Even after the Supreme Court judgment nullifying the party’s controversial 2025 convention in Ibadan, confusion has persisted because rival camps continue to interpret the ruling differently. The Supreme Court, in a split judgment of three to two justices, upheld earlier decisions of lower courts, which voided the convention on grounds that it violated subsisting court orders.

Many observers had hoped the judgment would finally settle the leadership crisis. But it triggered fresh hostilities instead. Almost immediately after the verdict, rival factions resumed political warfare.

One faction, backed by the Adolphus Wabara-led Board of Trustees, argued that the judgment automatically dissolved the existing National Working Committee and transferred authority to the BoT.

Speaking after a stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja, Babangida Aliyu declared that the PDP constitution empowered the BoT to assume leadership whenever there was a vacuum.

“Our constitution states that in a situation where there is no National Working Committee, the Board of Trustees takes over. The BoT has, therefore, taken over the affairs of the PDP,” he said.

Aliyu warned against suggestions that the PDP was finished, insisting that Nigeria could not afford a one-party state. “We are reaching out to all members, including those who may have left, to return and rebuild the party,” he added.

But the other faction of the BoT immediately rejected that position, further exposing the depth of the fragmentation within the party. The Wike-backed camp insisted that the Supreme Court judgment validated its own leadership structure.

The faction’s spokesman, Jungudo Haruna Mohammed, accused opponents of deliberately twisting the contents of the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment for political advantage.

“The judgment was explicit, clear and unambiguous,” he stated. “The apex court did not suspend Senator Samuel Anyanwu or direct the Board of Trustees to take over the affairs of the party.”

The legal confusion has become so severe that even senior lawyers within the PDP now openly accuse one another of misrepresenting court pronouncements. Wike himself has emerged as perhaps the fiercest voice in the crisis.

During a live media interaction in Abuja, the FCT minister openly challenged the Turaki-led faction to prove its legitimacy by opening an official PDP bank account and establishing a national secretariat.

“You cannot continue to deceive Nigerians,” Wike said. “If they are sure they are the authentic leadership of the PDP, let them open an official PDP account and ask members to pay nomination fees into it.”

He went further to describe the rival leadership as fraudulent. “You don’t form a leadership in your bedroom and call it a national structure. That is fraud, 419,” he declared.

The former Rivers State governor also threatened to seal any “illegal” PDP office opened within the Federal Capital Territory, heightening fears that the party may soon descend into total institutional paralysis.

Yet beyond the courtroom battles and public insults lies a deeper ideological and psychological problem within the PDP, one driven by ego, ambition and conflicting political interests. Several senior party figures privately admit that the crisis has persisted because influential actors are no longer interested in reconciliation but in personal survival ahead of 2027.

A former presidential aspirant, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, captured this growing frustration when he openly declared that the PDP may already be “beyond rescue.”

In a statement issued by his media office, Olawepo-Hashim warned that the party had drifted from internal disagreements into full structural collapse.
“What began as an internal leadership dispute has evolved into a full blown structural breakdown,” the statement noted. “Entrenched factions and competing interests have rendered the party increasingly ineffective as a national opposition platform.”

He also raised concerns that some forces within the PDP may have quietly aligned with the ruling establishment, thereby weakening the opposition from within.

For many analysts, that suspicion explains why reconciliation efforts repeatedly fail despite numerous peace meetings. The Saraki-led reconciliation committee, various governors’ interventions and repeated consultations by party elders have all collapsed under the weight of mutual distrust.

The PDP’s troubles are rooted in unresolved power struggles dating back several election cycles. The bitter rivalry between Wike and Makinde loyalists, zoning controversies, disputes over party offices and regional calculations have combined to destroy internal cohesion. The result is a party increasingly consumed by litigation instead of political mobilisation.

Ironically, while the PDP tears itself apart, the ruling APC continues consolidating its influence across the country through defections and strategic alliances. Several lawmakers, governors and party stakeholders have quietly abandoned the PDP, fearing that remaining within the fractured opposition could endanger their political futures.

Even Governor Bala Mohammed recently admitted that his camp had to explore alternative political platforms to guarantee political survival for supporters.
“Our hearts remain with the PDP, but politically we must move forward,” he said during a recent interview.

He accused forces loyal to Wike of undermining the party and warned that opposition politics itself was under threat.

For many aspirants, however, the ideological debates matter less than the harsh political reality confronting them. Some have borrowed heavily to purchase expensive nomination forms. Others have invested years building structures under factions whose legality may ultimately collapse in court. If the crisis persists, many risk losing both political relevance and enormous financial investments. Already, confusion over authentic candidates, parallel primaries and conflicting court orders threaten to create electoral disasters similar to those that crippled opposition parties in previous election cycles.

The danger for the PDP is that time is running out. What remains uncertain is whether the party can still rediscover enough unity to survive the approaching electoral storm or whether the current crisis marks the final unravelling of a political platform that once dominated Nigeria’s democratic landscape.

For now, the PDP remains trapped between rival ambitions, wounded egos, endless litigation and competing political interests while thousands of anxious aspirants wait helplessly for a future nobody within the party appears capable of defining.