S’ Court Reserves Judgment in PDP’s Appeal Against Judgment Nullifying Convention 

Alex Enumah in Abuja 

The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment in the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), seeking to upturn the judgment of the Court of Appeal which nullified the conduct of the party’s national convention, held last year in Ibadan.

A five-member panel of the apex court announced on Wednesday that its judgment would be delivered on a date to be communicated to all parties in the appeal.

Justice Garba Mohammed, who led the five-member panel, made the announcement shortly after lawyers representing parties in the appeal adopted their processes as brief of their arguments, for and against the appeal.

The faction of the PDP led by Tanimu Turaki had approached the apex court to challenge the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had nullified the convention for being held in disobedience of a valid order of court.

Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, had last year in a judgment, restrained the then Ambassador Iliya Damagum-led National Executive Committee (NEC) of the PDP from proceeding with the convention slated for November 15 and 16, 2026, in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Justice Lifu had, in his judgment, ordered that the convention should not hold until an aspirant to the office of national chairman, former Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, is given the opportunity to purchase interest and nomination forms to enable him participate in the convention for the election of national officers.

The party however went ahead to conduct the convention in disregard to the orders of the court.

The PDP had predicated its action to conduct the convention on the grounds that the court of Justice Lifu lacked the jurisdiction to stop the convention as the issue brought before him was an internal matter of the PDP, which no court has jurisdiction to delve into.

However, the appellate court, in its judgment last month, disagreed that the issue at the trial court was an internal affairs of a political parties which courts cannot entertain.

The three-member panel of the appellate court subsequently nullified the outcome of the convention for being held in disobedience to the orders of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

Dissatisfied, the PDP approached the apex court praying it to accept the appeal against the lower court judgment, set the judgment aside and hold that the issue was an internal matter of the PDP, which both the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain.

However, the respondents in the appeal urged the court to dismiss the appeal for lacking in merit and hold otherwise.

Details later…