By Luminous Jannamike, ABUJA
The Court of Appeal may have settled one question for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Osun, but it has stirred a more consequential question over the troubled opposition party: who controls the machinery of the PDP?
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The ruling did not recognise Kabiru Tanimu Turaki or his associates as the national leadership of the PDP. But it handed the Turaki camp an important appellate victory which could strengthen its wider fight with the faction aligned with Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
The immediate dispute was over the PDP governorship ticket in Osun. The bigger political significance lies in what the judgment says about the party process through which that candidate emerged.
Setting aside the Federal High Court judgment, the Court of Appeal held that the December 2, 2025, PDP governorship primary carried out by Turaki, which produced Adebayo Olugbenga Adedamola, was ‘valid and lawfully conducted.’
“The 2nd December 2025 PDP primary election was validly and lawfully conducted,” the Court of Appeal held.
It also held that Adedamola’s nomination became complete and effective when INEC received his completed Form EC9 and accompanying documents from Turaki.
That gives the Turaki camp something more substantial than a political talking point: an appellate court has upheld the validity of a party process conducted under the framework it claims authority over.
What judges actually upheld
The judgment further held that INEC’s omission of Adedamola’s name from its February 15, 2026 list was unlawful and ordered the commission to include, publish and recognise him as the duly nominated PDP governorship candidate.
The judges also considered the authority behind the primary, finding that it was conducted pursuant to a timetable approved by the Turaki-led National Working Committee and by an electoral committee accountable to it.
“The primary was conducted by an electoral committee constituted pursuant to a timetable approved by and reporting to the (Turaki-led) National Working Committee,” the appellate court said.
That is the part Turaki’s camp is likely to put to political use. Although the judgment did not declare Turaki the authentic national chairman of the PDP, or did it recognize his faction as the legitimate national leadership or resolve the party’s wider leadership dispute, it upheld an electoral process conducted under the Turaki NWC-approved framework and ordered INEC to recognize the candidate produced through it as the PDP candidate. For a faction fighting over control of a party, that is useful ammunition.
Jungudo draws the line
Jungudo Haruna Mohammed, National Publicity Secretary of the rival PDP faction aligned with Wike, has drawn a firm line between the Osun case and the leadership battle.
“The question of who constitutes the legitimate leadership of the PDP has long been settled and was not one of the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs in the suit that culminated in the Court of Appeal judgment,” Jungudo said.
His argument is difficult to fault on the narrow legal question. The Court of Appeal did not determine who controls the PDP nationally. Its orders dealt with the Osun primary, Adedamola’s nomination and INEC’s failure to recognise him.
Jungudo also rejected any attempt to portray the ruling as judicial recognition of the Turaki faction.
“The judgment cannot properly be presented as a declaration validating, conferring recognition upon, or legitimising the so-called ‘Turaki group,’ either as the present or future leadership of the PDP,” he said.
Again, the judgment itself contains no such declaration. But there is a political complication for the Wike camp.
A court does not have to declare Turaki the leader of the PDP for a judgment involving a PDP electoral process to strengthen his political claim. The distinction is between what the court decided and what a faction can make of what the court decided.
The grey area
That is where the Osun judgment becomes interesting. The Wike camp can correctly say: the Court did not recognise Turaki as PDP leader.
Turaki’s camp can equally point to the judgment and say: the Court recognised the validity of a PDP process conducted under the NWC framework we claim authority over.
Neither proposition automatically cancels the other. The danger for the Wike camp is that repeated judicial victories involving party processes could gradually make it harder to dismiss Turaki’s faction simply as a ‘so-called group’.
The ruling does not mean Wike has lost the battle for the PDP. It means the legal dimension of that battle has acquired another significant piece of ammunition.
Turaki sees vindication
The Turaki camp has interpreted the judgment as a vindication of its position.
Ini Ememobong, National Publicity Secretary of the Interim National Working Committee, said the Court upheld the PDP primary and ordered INEC to recognise its candidate.
“The panel of the Court held that the party having duly conducted primaries which were monitored by INEC and the name of the winner forwarded to the commission, there was no legal impediment to the participation of the candidate in the elections,” Ememobong said.
He also highlighted the court’s treatment of the nomination procedure.
“Specifically, it held that the access code for nomination on the portal was a mere administrative formality which cannot override the statutory provision of forwarding names to the commission, which PDP (under Turaki) had done,” he said.
Ememobong went further, accusing INEC of frustrating the faction’s candidate. That remains the faction’s allegation, not a finding by the Court of Appeal.
“The primaries that produced our candidate was peaceful, transparent, and the result uncontested. It was duly monitored by INEC, but the Commission blatantly refused to recognise our candidate thereafter and withheld the codes for the upload of candidates from us,” Ememobong alleged.
The Adeleke twist
The Turaki camp’s decision after winning in court was perhaps even more revealing.
Although the court upheld its candidate, the faction decided to support Governor Ademola Adeleke of Accord Party, arguing that the late judgment had left its candidate with insufficient time to campaign.
Explaining the decision, Ememobong said: “Faced with the unimaginable difficulty that this situation puts on us, the Interim National Working Committee has chosen not to throw its hands up in defeat.”
The faction subsequently urged its members to vote for Adeleke
So, Turaki’s camp secured a legal victory without translating it into an electoral contest in Osun. Its more valuable gain may lie elsewhere; in the continuing struggle over which faction can credibly claim to act for the PDP.
A foothold, not a takeover
That distinction matters. Winning recognition for one candidate does not amount to controlling the PDP. The Osun primary is not a national convention, and a judgment validating one nomination does not automatically validate every structure or decision associated with the faction.
Turaki would need further legal and political developments before his camp could turn this victory into a broader claim of institutional control.
But the argument has moved a step forward. The question is no longer simply whether Turaki can say he leads the PDP. It is whether he can accumulate enough judicial victories, political support and recognition around party decisions to make his claim increasingly difficult to ignore.
For Wike’s camp, the answer remains clear: the Osun judgment should be confined to the Osun nomination.
For Turaki, the opportunity is to make the political meaning broader; to present the judgment as evidence that his faction’s actions in the name of the PDP can withstand judicial scrutiny.
That does not make Turaki the INEC-recognised leader of the party. It gives him another weapon in the fight for it.
And that may be the hidden story in the Osun judgment. The Court of Appeal did not hand Turaki the PDP. But it may have given him a stronger foothold from which to fight for it.
Whether that foothold grows into something bigger will depend on what happens next in the courts and within the party itself.
For now, the answer to the question: can Turaki camp turn Osun court victory into control of party? remains no.
But the more uncomfortable question for the Wike camp is this: what happens if this is not Turaki’s last judicial victory?
Vanguard News
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