A fresh twist has emerged in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leadership crisis after a faction of the Party announced that it had submitted former President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential nomination to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2027 general elections, despite the electoral body’s refusal to recognise its leadership.
The faction, led by Kabiru Turaki’s Interim National Working Committee, disclosed on Friday that it manually submitted Jonathan’s nomination alongside the names of all its governorship, National Assembly and state assembly candidates.
Speaking in Abuja, the committee’s National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Ini Ememobong, said the decision to submit the documents manually became necessary after INEC declined to issue the access codes required for electronic submission, maintaining that the codes were merely an administrative procedure.
According to him, the submissions complied fully with the Electoral Act 2026.
“Notwithstanding INEC’s refusal to provide us with the necessary access codes… we have successfully submitted, manually and in full compliance with the Electoral Act 2026, the list of candidates sponsored by the authentic Peoples Democratic Party,” Ememobong stated.
He added that INEC acknowledged receiving the documents, including Jonathan’s presidential nomination and the names of all other candidates fielded by the faction.
The Turaki-led group warned the electoral commission against publishing any list other than the one it submitted.
“Should the Commission publish names other than those lawfully submitted by us… we are exhausting every constitutional, legal and democratic avenue to ensure that our Party is not hijacked or annexed to the ruling Party,” Ememobong said.
He explained that the crisis followed the Supreme Court’s judgment on the PDP leadership, arguing that the Party’s Board of Trustees, together with a properly requisitioned National Executive Committee meeting, constituted the Interim National Working Committee after the ruling left the PDP without a legally recognised national leadership.
Ememobong said although INEC was formally notified of the interim leadership, the Commission refused to recognise it, forcing the Party to seek redress in court.
Criticising the Federal High Court’s ruling on the matter, he said the judgment conflicted with earlier decisions of both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal.
“The judgment… reads more like an appeal on the judgment of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. It is clearly inconsistent with the extant decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal that form the foundation of our case,” he said.
He revealed that the faction had already appealed the judgment and would also challenge what it described as discrepancies between the judgment delivered in open court and its Certified True Copy.
The PDP faction further accused INEC of abandoning its impartial role as Nigeria’s electoral umpire.
“The Commission’s actions have regrettably reinforced the growing public perception that it is no longer acting with the impartiality expected of the nation’s electoral umpire,” Ememobong alleged.
He also claimed that INEC withheld key facts during court proceedings involving the Party and ignored congresses it monitored, warning that such actions were weakening public confidence in the country’s electoral system.
According to him, the PDP became the first victim of a wider campaign aimed at dismantling opposition parties and paving the way for one-party dominance.
“We were the pioneer target for opposition dismantling and capture… but it has now spread to almost all the opposition parties,” he said.
Ememobong called on Nigerians to defend the country’s multi-party democracy, warning that electoral authoritarianism poses a serious threat to democratic consolidation while expressing confidence that the Party would ultimately succeed in its legal battle.