The Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday adjourned till January 14, 2026, the case seeking to nullify the outcome of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Convention recently held in Ibadan, Oyo State.
The adjournment followed a fresh motion filed by a faction of the party led by Kabiru Turaki, SAN, asking the presiding judge, Justice Joyce Abdulmalik, to step down from the case over alleged bias.
In the application filed by a team of seven Senior Advocates of Nigeria, led by Chief Chris Uche, the faction including former PDP Acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Damagum, and officials elected at the convention argued that the judge’s handling of the matter had created a “reasonable apprehension of bias.”
The applicants claimed that despite initially declining an ex parte request from the faction aligned with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, the judge later issued orders preventing their group from taking decisions on behalf of the party.
Citing Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, they argued that their right to fair hearing and an impartial tribunal had been compromised. They also stated that the party had previously petitioned the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, requesting that matters relating to internal disputes of the PDP should not be assigned to Justice Abdulmalik or two other judges due to past rulings.
The faction further alleged that the suit, filed on November 21, 2025, appeared to have been fast-tracked to the court, leading to ex parte orders they claimed mirrored previous rulings by another judge, Justice Omotosho, in similar PDP disputes.
They maintained that the interim order, issued without urgency and before the substantive hearing, affected the core issues of the case and contributed to their loss of confidence in the judge’s neutrality.
Justice Abdulmalik, however, ruled that the motion for her recusal was not ready for hearing because some parties had yet to be served. She subsequently adjourned the case to the new date.
The suit challenges the legitimacy of the party’s Ibadan convention, making it another chapter in the series of leadership and internal dispute cases confronting the PDP.
