Wabara Shuts Door on PDP CTC Plot
The PDP is not contemplating any form of caretaker committee arrangement, the Chairman of the BoT, Sen Adolphus Wabara, has declared, firmly dismissing insinuations of an impending leadership overhaul as mischief driven by vested interests.
Wabara, a former Senate President, spoke against the backdrop of persistent speculation that the PDP might jettison its current NWC in favour of a caretaker structure. He described such claims as a ruse, stressing that the party’s leadership, produced at the Ibadan National Convention, remains valid, constitutional, and binding.
He said that, the Ibadan convention that produced the Tanimu Turaki–led NWC was properly convened and lawfully conducted, leaving no vacuum that would warrant the establishment of a CTC. He insisted that Tanimu Turaki SAN remains the authentic and bona fide Chairman of the PDP.
“As far as we are concerned, there is nothing like a CTC. It is not under consideration,” Wabara said, adding that the BoT, as the conscience of the party and custodian of its assets, was not aware of any such proposal. He described any talk of a caretaker arrangement as unnecessary and alien to the party’s current reality.
While noting that some issues surrounding the party are before the courts, Wabara said the PDP would await judicial outcomes and abide strictly by them. However, he urged party members and the general public to disregard rumours being peddled by what he described as impostors collaborating with external forces to weaken the opposition.
Beyond internal matters, Wabara warned against what he called a broader attempt to push Nigeria towards a one-party state, urging opposition parties and well-meaning Nigerians to unite in defence of plural democracy. He maintained that the PDP had weathered its worst storms and was gradually reclaiming its footing.
The BoT chairman’s intervention has, however, exposed deeper fault lines within the party. Senator Bukola Saraki has openly canvassed the idea of a caretaker committee, a proposal widely seen within PDP circles as aligning with the preference of the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, who has been excluded from the current management structure of the party.
Saraki, who chaired a reconciliation committee set up by an enlarged stakeholders’ meeting, failed to resolve the impasse, prompting the BoT to constitute a separate reconciliation panel led by Amb Hassan Adamu, with Mike Oghiadhome as secretary. That process also ran aground amid hardening positions.
Wike reportedly warned that the crisis would be a “fight to finish” unless the PDP agreed not to field a presidential candidate in 2027, a stance that dovetailed with remarks credited to Gov Seyi Makinde that Wike had promised to hold the PDP down for President Tinubu. Tinubu himself later remarked that it gave him “great pleasure” to see the PDP in disarray. A statement of concurrence to Wike’s antics.
Against this backdrop, Wabara’s categorical rejection of a caretaker committee is seen by many party stakeholders as timely and statesmanlike. By reaffirming the supremacy of the Ibadan convention and backing the Turaki-led NWC, the BoT has drawn a clear institutional line.
Sources within the party say Saraki’s neutrality has been widely questioned, with his position perceived as sympathetic to Wike’s agenda. A few stakeholders meeting he convened at his residence, contacted Governors Bala Moh’d and Seyi Makinde, as both governors insisted on standing firmly by the outcome of the Ibadan convention.
Despite INEC’s posture on the crisis, PDP leaders argue that the party is guided by settled Supreme Court decisions affirming the non-justiciability of internal party leadership mechanisms and limiting regulatory interference.
For now, the BoT’s position has effectively slammed the brakes on any CTC gambit, reinforcing the authority of the existing leadership and setting the tone for the PDP’s next phase of internal consolidation.