Emeka Amaefula
WADATA PLAZA SIEGE: PDP ACCUSES ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FORCES, THANKS NIGERIANS FOR RESISTANCE—WIKE FIRES BACK
What unfolded on Tuesday 18th of November 2025, at Wadata Plaza, the national headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was not simply a leadership scuffle. It was a full-blown political standoff that has now exploded into accusations, counter-accusations, and warnings about the future of Nigeria’s democracy.
The newly elected National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP, led by National Chairman Alhaji Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN), arrived at the party secretariat in Abuja for their first official engagement after their election at the Ibadan National Convention. But instead of walking into an office, they walked into a confrontation.
According to the PDP, the entrance to the headquarters was blocked by heavily armed police officers allegedly acting under instructions of expelled former National Secretary Senator Samuel Anyanwu and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike—also expelled from the party.
The PDP claims the officers fired tear gas at the governors, NWC members, journalists, and supporters present, insisting that over 200 canisters were launched in a chaotic attempt to prevent the new leadership from taking control of the complex.
Witnesses described stampedes, panic, and injuries, with party leaders temporarily forced back by the gas fumes. Some clung to the fences until the crowd regrouped. But the party says the people stood their ground—and eventually, with sheer resistance and numbers, forced their way back into the building.
In a statement signed by National Publicity Secretary Comrade Ini Ememobong, the PDP described the incident as “state-backed aggression designed to silence the opposition and hijack the democratic space ahead of 2027.”
“This struggle is no longer just about the PDP,” the statement read. “It is about the survival of electoral democracy in Nigeria. When the opposition is attacked, democracy is threatened. Nigeria must not become a one-party state.”
The party says it has written to international democracy watchdogs, diplomatic missions and global partners, urging them to take note of what it called “an emerging pattern of electoral authoritarianism.”
But Nyesom Wike has now fired back.
Speaking late Tuesday night, the FCT Minister dismissed the PDP’s account as “a laughable story cooked up by people who know they do not have legitimacy.”
“If they want to run a party, they should follow the law,” Wike said. “You cannot conduct a convention under a mango tree then wake up to invade a national secretariat and expect the police to clap for you.”
Wike insisted he had no hand in security deployments, describing himself as “too busy running the capital city to chase political clowns.” He also accused the Turaki-led faction of “trying to play victim after taking the party through illegality.”
Asked if he would return to the PDP if reconciled, he cut in abruptly:
“I have moved on. They should do the same. PDP is not their private property.”
Many observers see the confrontation not just as a leadership dispute, but as a battle between those who want to rebuild the PDP and those willing to destroy it if they cannot control it.
Political analysts now warn that what happened at Wadata Plaza may become a preview of what awaits in 2027: a desperate struggle for power using state institutions, security agencies and loyal factions.
The PDP insists it will not back down, claiming that Tuesday’s resistance proves Nigerians are ready to defend multiparty democracy.
But the party also knows that democracy does not survive on tears and press releases—it survives on power, organization, and strategy.
If the PDP cannot put its own house in order, no amount of moral argument will save it from implosion.
And if Nigeria’s security institutions continue to dance openly in partisan conflict, then the question is not whether democracy is threatened—the question is how long it has left.
2027 now looks less like an election year and more like a battlefield.
— EMEKA AMAEFULA
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