The Edo State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has welcomed the judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja, delivered by Justice M. G. Umar, dismissing the suit filed by Senator Samuel Anyanwu in his attempt to cling to the office of National Secretary of the Party.
According to a press statement signed by the Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Edo State Chapter, Mr. Dan Osa-Ogbeigie on January 20, 2026, the court firmly rejected the claims of the former National Secretary and reaffirmed a settled principle of Nigerian constitutional jurisprudence: that matters relating to the internal leadership and administration of a political party are non-justiciable and lie beyond the province of judicial interference.
Find below, a full text of the press statement titled:
COURT AFFIRMS PDP POSITION; EDO PDP SAYS LAW AND PARTY DISCIPLINE HAVE DEFEATED DESPERATION
The Edo State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) welcomes the judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja, delivered by Justice M. G. Umar, dismissing the suit filed by Senator Samuel Anyanwu in his attempt to cling to the office of National Secretary of the Party.
In Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/254/2025 – Sen. Samuel Anyanwu v. INEC & Ors, the court firmly rejected the claims of the former National Secretary and reaffirmed a settled principle of Nigerian constitutional jurisprudence: that matters relating to the internal leadership and administration of a political party are non-justiciable and lie beyond the province of judicial interference.
The court further condemned the multiplicity of suits instituted by Senator Anyanwu across various courts as a clear abuse of court process, and rightly held that having been elected in 2021, his tenure had expired by effluxion of time.
The Edo PDP describes this judgment as a decisive victory for party discipline, internal democracy, and the rule of law. The attempt to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognising duly authorised PDP communications not bearing Senator Anyanwu’s signature was, in the Party’s view, a reckless and self-serving effort to hold the party hostage and undermine its constitutionally recognised organs.
The Party assures its teeming members across Edo State, the good people of Edo, and the Nigerian public that all other similar cases instituted by anti-democratic forces will inevitably fail. The courts of law, the PDP affirms, will not be converted into instruments of political desperation or personal ambition.
This judgment has also finally exposed and laid to rest the activities of renegade elements who abandoned party discipline, aligned with external political interests, and sought to destabilise the PDP from within. Their expulsion at the Ibadan National Convention in November 2025 was both lawful and necessary, undertaken in the broader interest of party cohesion and democratic integrity.
On the broader question of governance, the PDP notes that this episode further underscores the culture of desperation and intolerance that has come to characterise the APC governments of Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the federal level and Monday Okpebholo in Edo State. Lacking ideas, compassion, and democratic temperament, the APC has increasingly resorted to intimidation, institutional manipulation, and political harassment in place of sound governance.
The PDP reaffirms that it remains united, reorganised, and firmly prepared to rescue Edo State and Nigeria from the grip of desperate and clueless politicians whose survival strategy is the suppression of opposition voices rather than service to the people.
The Party calls on its members to remain steadfast and assures Nigerians that the march towards democratic restoration is steady, lawful, and irreversible.
DAN Osa-Ogbegie, Esq.
Publicity Secretary
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Edo State
20 January, 2026.
