A faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) aligned with Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike has moved to close ranks around a controversial expulsion list, issuing a formal disclaimer and urging the public to ignore any counter-claims from the affected politicians. The statement, signed by the faction’s National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, restated that the National Executive Committee (NEC) had, on November 18, expelled 18 high-profile party figures for alleged anti-party activities and gross misconduct, invoking the party’s amended 2017 constitution.

The expelled group reads like a roll call of political heavyweights: Governors Bala Mohammed (Bauchi), Dauda Lawal (Zamfara) and Seyi Makinde (Oyo); former governors and national leaders including Emmanuel Udom and ex-Senate President Adolphus Wabara; and senior party officials such as former Deputy National Chairman (South) Taofeek Arapaja and the once-acting national chairman Umar Iliya Damagum. Also named were a cluster of other figures spanning former ministers, ex-advisers and loyalists, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, Ben Obi, Chief Bode George among them, whose continued public interventions, Anyanwu said, were now “embarrassing misrepresentations.”

The disclaimer reads as both a disciplinary statement and a defensive posture: it labels any individual presenting themselves as an officer of the PDP after the NEC decision as an “impostor” or “meddlesome interloper.” It also dismisses a recent gathering in Ibadan by some of the expelled members as a social occasion rather than a legitimate party convention. The message is blunt: do not recognise or give credence to statements issued in the names of those who, according to the Wike faction, no longer belong to the party.

Senator Anyanwu’s declaration also responded directly to a competing narrative from the Turaki-led group, which in a counter-statement claimed that Wike, Anyanwu, Fayose and others had themselves been expelled. This tit-for-tat of expulsions and counter-expulsions illustrates a party in which institutional lines have been blurred and leadership legitimacy is contested on multiple fronts. Both camps have deposited rival leadership lists and communications with INEC in previous confrontations, signalling that the struggle is not just rhetorical but procedural and legal.

Observers describe the crisis as a classic schism: personality clashes, competing patronage networks and the scramble for control of party machinery ahead of the 2027 electoral cycle. For rank-and-file members and voters, the immediate cost is confusion — competing claimants to the PDP identity, conflicting news about who controls which structure, and an undermined capacity to present a united front to the electorate.

Analysts warn that unless either side yields or a neutral arbiter — the courts or a reconciliatory NEC process — intervenes, the party risks further fragmentation, defections and legal battles. The timing is politically calamitous: with general elections on the horizon, the PDP’s capacity to recruit, strategise and campaign will depend heavily on which claim to legitimacy ultimately holds sway.

For now, the Wike faction’s disclaimer is designed to consolidate a base of supporters around a single line of authority and to delegitimise rivals’ public actions. Whether it will hold in court or on the ground in grassroots structures remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: the PDP’s internal war of attrition is intensifying, and its outcome could reshape opposition dynamics in the months ahead.