The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the Federal High Court’s dismissal of a suit filed by a former factional National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, as a vindication of its leadership and internal processes.
Speaking with journalists on Tuesday evening in Abuja after a high-level meeting between PDP leaders and former Vice President Namadi Sambo, the PDP National Chairman, Tanimu Turaki (SAN), said the judgment reaffirmed the principle that courts should not interfere in issues that are strictly internal party affairs.
Naijaonpoint reports that Turaki was reacting to the decision of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which struck out Anyanwu’s suit seeking judicial recognition as the party’s substantive national secretary.
Justice Mohammed Umar had dismissed the case after holding that Anyanwu’s tenure as PDP national secretary expired in December 2025, rendering the suit overtaken by events.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/254/2025, had Anyanwu naming the Independent National Electoral Commission and a former acting National Chairman of the PDP, Umar Damagun, as first and second defendants.
Reacting to the ruling, Turaki said the judgment confirmed the party’s long-held position that internal leadership disputes should not be settled by the courts.
“It is a vindication for us in the PDP family. We’ve said time and time again that the decision of the Supreme Court is sacrosanct, and that our courts have no business meddling in matters that are purely political party matters,” he said.
The PDP chairman criticised what he described as recent judicial pronouncements that, in his view, encroached into party affairs and risked undermining public confidence in the judiciary.
“That is why, when some judges, who are judges of particular concern, have recently given judgments delving into issues they ordinarily should not delve into, and have given judgments that cannot be rationalised by whatever level of argument you want to advance, they are, if anything, trying to smear the name of the judiciary as an impartial institution, which is the last hope of the common man,” Turaki stated.
He insisted that the latest ruling affirmed the legitimacy of the current PDP leadership and its convention.
“The judgment of Justice Umar today has vindicated us in the PDP that, yes, we are the genuine leaders of the PDP; it has vindicated us that, yes, our convention was legitimately done,” he said.
Turaki added, “It has vindicated us that, indeed, people cannot just go into one corner and then begin to ascribe to themselves the leadership of a political party. This is not a market association, neither is it an association of shoe-shiners. This is a political party, and there must be discipline.”