News
BREAKING: Makinde, Turaki, lose! *S’Court affirms Wike’s PDP leadership
The Supreme Court on Thursday, finally nailed the Seyi Makinde camp of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which also includes Bala Muhammed, Governor of Bauchi State, by nullifying the national convention held in Ibadan, Oyo state, on November 15 and 16, 2025, which produced Taminu Turaki as National Chairman.
Justice Stephen Adah, who read the majority judgement in a two-three split decision of the five-member panel of the apex court, dismissed the appeal filed by the camp, which had earlier lost at the Court of Appeal, for lacking in merit.
Adah, said the camp not only violated a susbsisting order of the federal high court which restrained it from proceeding with the planned convention, adding that such defiance of an existing judgment of the Federal High Court, delivered by Justice James Omotosho would not be condoned by law.
Berating the Turaki-led group for going on to another court of coordinate jurisdiction to secure an order, instead of going on appeal, the apex court described the move as an abuse of court process, adding that any litigant who engaged in the act of abuse of court process would do so at his or her own peril.
The majority judgment dismissed the appeal for lack of merit.
The Turaki group had asked the Supreme Court to set aside a Court of Appeal ruling that voided the convention for breaching a subsisting court order.
Through their counsel, Paul Erokoro (SAN), the appellants urged the apex court to uphold the convention and dismiss a cross-appeal filed by a rival faction loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
However, the respondents, including former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, contended that the dispute transcends internal party matters and centres on disobedience to a valid court order.
Lamido had earlier obtained a Federal High Court injunction barring the PDP from holding the convention until he was permitted to contest for the position of national chairman.
Despite the order, the party went ahead with the exercise—an action later declared unlawful by both the trial court and the Court of Appeal.
The appellate court further ruled that the matter was not protected under the doctrine of internal party affairs and accordingly nullified the convention.
The apex court further held that political parties are the vehicle through which politicians get to public office, hence they have a responsibility to obey court orders in deference to the rule of law.
Stressing that once a party knew of an order of court, it was bound to obey it, the court held: “The conduct of the national convention of November 15, 2025, is null and void and is hereby nulled. This court will not lend its machinery to any litigant who abuses the process of the court. This appeal is lacking in merit and is hereby dismissed. Parties will bear their own costs,” it added.
Justice Haruna Samani, in the minority judgment he read, maintained, among other reasons, that the process of who runs a political party is the internal affairs of the party, and therefore not within the jurisdiction of the lower courts.
This position was also supported by Justice Abubakar Umar, who cited an earlier ruling of the Supreme Court, which states that any matter that does not concern primary elections of political parties is not a pre-election matter and therefore not justiciable.
Between sports and politics, it is difficult to ascertain which is more potent in delivering the dividends of popularity. But in a situation where the two are combined, what is the outcome? It is predictable – a two-fold if not multiple-fold of that.
Evidence of that reverberated last Saturday, when the floors of the Eko Hotels shook to its foundation, with the rooftops almost caving in, while announcing the entrance of Jim Ifeanyichukwu Nwobodo – a man adorned with the garlands from the two worlds after striding through them like a colossus.
For many youngsters who had wondered why the entire atmosphere at the main hall of the prestigious hotel echoed with Jiiimmm – jiiimmm – jiiimmm, the answer was not farfetched. The man that had just walked in had etched his name in the hearts of the people in many ways.
For instance, his tenure marked Nigeria’s most glorious era in sports. Everyone reckons with the Super Eagles of 1994 as the best the country has attained so far in global football reckoning. That, no doubt could easily be attributed to the Nwobodo magic.
As Minister of Sports and Youths Development, it was to his name that Nigeria recorded two major prestigious trophies that put its image on the global sports map – the 1994 African Cup of Nations (AFCON), the second time Nigeria would lift it and of course the globally-acclaimed Atlanta gold medal in football at the 1996 Olympics in the United States.
In this glorious era, Nigeria found its name on the envious list of global sports – not only winning AFCON for the second time in 1994, appearing at the World Cup in the same year, becoming the number one in African football and number five in the world ranking it crowned it all with the spectacular Olympics feat, with the contingents coming home with six medals – two golds, one silver and three bronzes – the best performance ever.
Even his foray into politics had a large component of sports in it, having led then Rangers Football Club of Enugu, as Chairman to its first major continental trophy – the African Cup of Winners in 1977. It was his launchpad into politics so much that his name and face were already quite familiar with the people.
From position of the Chairman, Anambra branch of the defunct Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), he got elected as the first Executive Governor of the old Anambra State comprising what is today, Enugu, Anambra and Ebonyi States.
In government that lasted from October 1, 1979 to October 1, 1983, he left a legacy that till date remains unmatched by succeeding governments – military and civilians – in infrastructure, education, hospitality among others.
Talk about the Nike Lake hotel, Nike, Enugu; old Anambra State Television, now split into Enugu State Broadcasting Service (ESBS) and Anambra State Television Service (ABS) Awka, Anambra State University of Science and Technology (ASUT), now split into Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) Enugu and former Anambra State University of Science and Technology (ASUTECH) Awka, now upgraded to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka.
There were also the Ikenga Hotels (with branches in Enugu, Onitsha, and Awka); the Nnamdi Azikiwe stadium, Enugu; Eha Amufu College of Education; and College of Education Nsugbe, Nsugbe, now Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe.
One of the most flamboyant politicians ever to strut the rostrum in Nigeria, Nwobodo whose dress sense also marked him out not only as a consummate fashionista but one with certain unique dress sense, also made it to the National Assembly as Senator representing Enugu East in the class of ’99-2003.
Gifted with immense public appeal, with penchant to attract the crowd like honey to bees, the energy his entrance generated as well as the ululations at Saturday’s event, was only too natural and emblematic of a man used to stealing the show at public gatherings.
The spontaneous reactions were simply consequent upon which aspect of him impacted the motley crowd comprising the high and mighty. For those from the South East, many still basking in the reverberating echoes of the politics of pasts, it was still the iconic Jim that had just walked in – a hero, whose name still lit fires in their stomachs.
For others, it was the entrance of the most iconic, most esteemed and most revered Igbo leader alive. The language of the Ogene music and the electrifying performance of the troupe from the South East delivered that part of the message most clearly.
Others recalled the Jim Nwobodo, who as Minister of Youths and Sports, led the pack on that night the Dream Team of Nigeria mesmerised the world and returned home with the gold medal from the Olympics and the fanfare that followed the outcome in the streets of Abuja to Lagos, Enugu to Kano and Port Harcourt.
Yet, many must have recalled the effervescent governor of the second republic in the league of progressives, made up of young, vibrant and visionary politicians of that era imbued with fresh ideas of how to move Nigerian into the league of developed nations.
But ultimately, many would surely see the figure that had just walked into that arena as one of the remaining political icons of the class of ’79 – in fact, one of the only two governors of that era still standing today outside Alhaji Awal Ibrahim of Niger State.
So, it was not for nothing that the crowd cheered endlessly as the ex-governor, ex-Minister and Senator made his grand appearance. Nobody would be in doubt that he deserved every bit of attention and recognition.
Any such doubts would be cleared not only by the deluge of ululations from the audience, sustained accolades from both the organisers and fellow recipients the quality of personalities accompanying the elder statesman, led by Peter Mbah, Governor of Enugu State.
Now, how would this enchanting event have ended without introducing the angle of Pat Nwobodo, the delectable wife and soft side of the Jim brand. The goddess of the Nigerian stock market, financial guru and former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD-CEO) of Savannah Bank Plc was there in tow.
Standing by her husband to whom she had graduated beyond a wife, partner, an ally a friend, to the major pillar along the path of the build-up and along the twist and turns of politics, statecraft, completed the picture of the evening.
Indeed, The Vanguard Lifetime Achievement Award for 2025, would be added to the list of the various trophies hanging on the walls of this octogenarian politician, sports enthusiast and administrator, leader of men and material and statesman extraordinaire.
But it certainly would not end there. The greater laurel is the imprint of his legacy in the hearts of his admirers as was showcased by the crowd which welcomed him with that loud ovation. That would be the more long-lasting – the more enduring.
For as the sage himself told the audience, while appreciating the recognition, getting awards while one was in power, could be good, getting awards outside power, remained the more enduring, because it emblemised good memories – the best legacy of man on earth.
By Sunny Igboanugo
“If you woke me up today and put the question – who is the most patriotic businessman in Nigeria in recent history – the answer will pop-up out instantly – Mike Adenuga! I won’t even have enough time to wipe my drowsy eyes or clear my head out of the sleepiness. It is an answer that has lived in my sub-conscious for years.”
These were my exact words last year. I wrote those words out of a thankful heart to celebrate the multibillionaire, whom, I have just learnt, also goes by the sobriquet – The Chairman or The Great Guru – thanks to Uche Nworah – Ezeudo Ozonmkpu of Enugwu-Ukwu na Umu-Nri – a guru himself in many respects – who has just delivered a heartwarming dissertation on the telecommunications magnate from an insider’s perspective.
I also wrote those words out of great pains and immense regrets that The Great Guru doesn’t own a refinery – just yet – because if he did, Nigerians would not be subjected to the hellish, harrowing and nightmarish experience they are forced to undergo today by the present-day shylocks playing in that field. I won’t name names. Take your tongue and count your teeth.
Just as I commented on Uche’s emotion-laden essay on his ex-boss, if Mike Adenuga owned a refinery today, Nigerians might not be buying petrol above N300 per litre. Reason is he would have found some magic to get around all the arguments offered by the shylocks that have made them continue to see shege banza as the cost of the product, which has remained central to their very existence continue to soar.
You might dismiss this as foolhardiness or ignorance. But I have my reasons. As I wrote last year – Mike Adenuga, has done what I have never seen any other Nigerian do in my long years on earth – sacrifice profit for the benefit of the masses. The introduction by GLO of per second billing in Nigeria, years ago, is the reason you and me are not swimming in the pool of our own tears today.
It was the game-changer that actually put telephony in the hands of the ordinary people – the reason that you could be calling your mother in the village from as far as the UK, US and even China, outside Nigerian cities of Sokoto, Osogbo or Umuahia.
Else, were it not for this move, GSM, would still remain a big luxury like the days of the 090 – naught nine naught – days – telephony will still be a status symbol in Nigeria today – not because of the actual global cost implications – of course neighbouring countries like Togo, Ghana and Benin Republic – far less endowed – had been using it for years – but simply because the shylocks had cornered it.
Remember all the excuses they had offered on why per second billings were impossible in Nigeria. Don’t they sound similar the arguments being made about fuel today. Aren’t they same as the reason for why the cost of owning and maintaining DSTV is higher in Nigeria than any other country the services exist?
Now don’t get it twisted. I was one of the highly privileged here. For one, I wasn’t subjected to some of the hard experiences some people went through. Sampler! Less than a week GSM came into Enugu, I was sitting at 23 Edinburg Street, office of The Guadian, when some gentlemen walked in and handed me a package containing a GSM handset, SIM card package and scores of N1.500 recharge cards.
This was at a time anyone who wanted to key into the new status symbol would go to the courts to swear affidavits, return to the banks to pay a whopping N25,000 – close to N1million in today’s reckoning before being allowed to purchase a GSM SIM card. I didn’t go through the riguours. That was even long before GLO made it to the scene.
So, as a typical Nigerian, I ought to be grateful having a place in the “I better pass my neighbour” list in this regard. But the sheer thievery that followed would not allow that. You know in those days, these shylocks configured their billing to the model that if you generated a call you paid and if you received a call you also paid. This was the level the got. That was until the advent of GLO that changed those thieving models.
I had been wondering why Adenuga chose that game-changer model, which had been declared IMPOSSIBLE before then. Recall that it took the other networks some months to adjust to the per second billing which they must have taken more out of the force of business losses than compassion for the people or change in their original business environment to adjust. For all the variables and excuses they had cited for their shylock behaviour were still in place when they began to copy GLO.
So, I could relate with Uche when he wrote these words: “The Guru is the most kind and greatest benefactor that I know. He gifts, gives, and ‘dashes’ staff, friends, associates and others cash in naira and foreign currency, cars, watches, jewelries, choice drinks and other items. No wonder Dele Momodu uses the phrase ‘the spirit of Africa’ to describe him.
“I am a great beneficiary of his magnanimity as a staff. Not only does he pay above market salaries, he also gives staff money ‘under the table’. The special word for this is in Globacom is ‘stoning’. It is common to hear staff saying; “Mr Chairman ‘stoned’ A & B’. When you are ‘stoned’, you are not expected to tell the other person. It is frowned at in the system to avoid unsettling those who were not ‘stoned.’
Mr Chairman is famous for giving people gifts, even people he doesn’t know, but reaching him to thank him becomes impossible. He does not expect a thank you and also usually doesn’t expect any return favours. He once told us a story during a meeting, of how when he started making money newly, he started buying Rolls Royce cars and other luxury cars.
“He said after sometime he began to realize the vanity in such purchases, so he distributed the whole collection among traditional rulers nationwide. It is a known fact that many people have become multimillionaires just from Mr Chairman’s stoning alone.”
Who else could have chosen that route rather than teaming up with the shylocks to make mega bucks than a man with such a large heart. Without him, Nigerians would probably still be paying as much as N300,000 for SIM cards and cost of calls would still be hitting the rooftops for such mundane, obtuse and criminal reason(s) like – telephony is an international business.
Or haven’t you heard so in DSTV, in petrol and other commodities – as if Nigeria is a different world! So, thank you Uche Nworah. Now we know! I hear it is The Chairman’s birthday, Today, Wednesday, April 29, 2026. May I join the world in saying to the The Great Guru: Hhappy 73rd! We won’t forget.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
All over the world the media are always among the first line of victims whenever and wherever democracy dies and dictatorship or autocracy is enthroned. Through the emasculation and asphyxiation of free speech and or freedom of speech, the media become the immediate target in such circumstances.
From the look of things, I don’t think Nigerian journalists are at home with this reality. No! Not just yet! I don’t know why it seems so. But I could hazard some guesses and build up some scenarios which I believe could suffice in assessing the situation.
Perhaps, it is because many of those who lived this reality in the last days of military dictatorship in Nigeria, have since exited the profession, climbed to higher grounds or just receded to the background, as consequences of natural sequence of events where the old is supposed to give way to the new.
Perhaps, it could be the direct result of the evolution in the profession – one of them – the introduction of electronics – if not the substantial or even total reliance on it as news-gathering instrument, which has made the job less cumbersome – thus introducing a pattern of ease in this regard.
Perhaps, it could be the direct consequences of the dearth, diminished impact and even subdued relevance of the print media, which led in the past, now taking a back stage in the new reality of the dominance of the electronic media.
Most probably, the influence of the social media has played a fast one in determining the direction of the industry to the extent that it is now the main source of news even for the traditional outfits, as much as it serves substantially as a distracting, if not distabilising factor.
But whatever it is, either singularly or by a collection of these factors, there is evidence of a demonstrable detour or bypass of the traditional role the media played in Nigeria that helped to shape its history – including dragging it out of the dungeon of military rule into the globally-acceptable arena of what is supposed to be democratic ethos.
Tempered by the new realities of the current generation, the Nigerian media have not only lost the fight in them but had their fangs and claws so smoothened that they now end up as instruments for caressing the patrons and purveyors of bad behaviour the tore at and clawed deeply in the past.
In other words, they have lost the plot. Otherwise, how could the media watch Nigeria suffer this level of degeneration after its chequered history of practically fighting with a million dark spirits and other anti-democratic forces to extricate itself from the vice grip of military rule?
It takes the Nigerian media which has degenerated into an insufferable degradation and complacency to watch the country gravitate towards a one-party state and pretend that they have no role in stopping the drift. Such never happened in the past.
Before 1999, the Nigerian media fought a bloody war against the military, beginning with the brutal era of the late Muhammadu Buhari, who after emerging the Head of State in 1983, launched the most draconian rule that had journalist caught in the crossfire, accentuated by the infamous Decree 2 of 1984, emblematised by the ugly fate of Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor.
Then came the eight years of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) nicknamed Maradona fashioned after the immense dribbling skills of the Argentine legend, Diego Maradona, which ended with the disastrous June 12, 1993 presidential election saga. Again, the Nigerian media marked the gap-toothed General, man to man and never allowed him breathing space.
Then came the most brutal of them all – the Abacha era, where the war assumed a cataclysmic dimension with Sani Abacha, the merciless military despot that took over from IBB, receiving an equal amount of blitzkrieg as he unleashed on the media even with the clear mismatch of the arsenals on both sides.
It was this media that made Abdulsalami Abubakar, who took over from Abacha to bail with his feet, completing the transition programme that in chaos after 12 years in just one year and handed over to Olusegun Obasanjo, rather than share in the experience of his predecessors.
Even Obasanjo, throughout his eight years, had his feet under fired by a watchful media, culminating in another internecine war that saw the third term agenda, one of the features of that era, crumbling under its own weight and by the force of massive onslaught launched against it.
Today, where are the same media? They have turned out – at best – some beggarly, acquiescing and insipid entities – and at worst – some undiluted, unapologetic and rabid enablers of the same anti-people, anti-democratic forces they fought in the past at the risk of tears and blood. How tragic!
What do you see today? Rather than attacking the bad behaviour that threaten the polity, it is rationalisation. So, in 2023 when a totally staggered nation was reeling in pain as the courts churned out some of the wackiest, basest and most confusing reasons to support the mindless heist against the people’s mandate, it was a that told his bemused audience – public opinion is kilometres away from law.
Today, victim-blaming has become the answer to the clearly dangerous and life-threatening crisis of Nigeria’s drift to a one-party state where President Bola Tinubu could even emerge as a monarch, with limitless powers, if not limitless tenure.
Now, where is the agenda-setting function of the media? It is the function of the media to ferret out malfeasance, maladministration, and bad behaviour, without which governance will degenerate into an irresponsible cabal or a syndicate that perpetrates its actions in darkness. Unfortunately, that is where Nigeria is today. Else, when the media launched the fierce battle against the military, was it for the absence of the mistake on the opposite side. When the media joined the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) in its battle to revalidate the June 12 election and enthronement of full-blown democracy led by Moshood Abiola, was it that the patrons of that war were all blameless.
Yes! In spite of the large baggage Abiola, an acolyte of the military, this ugly record was pushed to the background in the interest of the bigger good – democracy. Going by today’s standard, Nigerian media would have focused on the Abiola’s association with the military and other faultlines as a basis to blame him.
Had that happened, where would Nigeria have been today? But because the media were focused on the larger picture, they in the realization that whatever touches the nose is already close to the mouth, they fought relentlessly. That is how we got here. Could that be said of the situation today.
Joseph Pulitzer once admonished: “There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy. Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.”
How much has compromise – imbued by pecuniary, ethnic, religious and other primordial sentiments allowed this work? For how long do you blame INEC and the judiciary without blaming the media? There you find the danger – the TRAGEDY.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m the Tiny Voice!
-
Columns2 weeks agoAbike Dabiri: Did Obi raise a monster or you’re drunk on Tinubu’s poisoned chalice?
-
Columns4 weeks agoSeun Okinbaloye saga: How does Tinubu survive if Wike resigns?
-
News3 weeks agoStop using Latin phrases, make clear, unambiguous orders – NBA tells courts
-
Columns2 weeks agoBe the hero that saved Nigeria! Open letter to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar
-
News1 week agoJandor: Tinubu didn’t endorses Hamzat *I’ve briefed President on my ambition
-
News3 weeks agoNafiu Gombe: Yes, I have sponsors! *I can’t fight ADC big men alone!
-
Columns3 weeks agoCentus Nweze (JSC): Death of legal purist, irony of Nigerian judiciary
-
Columns2 weeks agoNow VDM has become Sowore’s nemesis, does Peter Obi need anther advocate?