Though former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, emerged legally victorious at the Supreme Court in his challenge against the Peoples Democratic Party over the disputed 2025 national convention, he has refused to celebrate the ruling, describing it instead as a “painful victory” that exposes deeper fractures within the party he helped build.
Warning that the party he helped build has been badly fractured by the very actors who drove the Ibadan convention that excluded him from the National Chairmanship race, he said the process has left the PDP weakened, divided, and politically bruised, with its internal cohesion now severely undermined.
He hard approached the court after he was denied nomination forms and after the party proceeded with the convention in defiance of a court order, a process that produced Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN) as chairman before being nullified by the Supreme Court in April 2026. However, rather than celebrate the ruling, the former Governor expressed anguish that the same political heavyweights—particularly state governors who backed the Ibadan convention and Turaki’s emergence have since abandoned him and the PDP and defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the same party they once opposed, leaving behind what he described as a fractured and weakened opposition. He accused the party elite of turning a family institution into a battlefield driven by ego and ambition, warning that the PDP is being hollowed out from within as its leadership and power brokers drift away after fueling internal conflict.
Lamido who was also a former minister of foreign affairs while taking a swipe at national governance lamented that Nigeria’s system is increasingly being reduced to short-term “palliatives” while deeper national challenges such as insecurity, poverty, and widening social division are being ignored.
He argued that political leadership has shifted focus away from long-term development to temporary relief measures, stressing that governance is now dominated by symbolic interventions rather than structural solutions.
“Politics today has become too trivial. Meanwhile, insecurity, poverty, and division are ignored. Governance has been reduced to palliatives,” he said, adding that such an approach is comparable to “treating a critically ill patient with painkillers instead of curing the disease.”
Lamido insisted that national priorities have been distorted, with political actors more focused on court cases, party supremacy battles, and defections than on addressing Nigeria’s deepening socio-economic crisis. According to him, the consequence is a widening gap between leadership and the daily realities of citizens.
He maintained that both ruling and opposition elites share responsibility for the current state of affairs, warning that Nigeria risks long-term instability if governance continues to prioritise short-term relief over sustainable reforms.
“If we truly care about Nigeria, we must first unite to solve security, poverty, and division. Then we can talk about politics and power,” he said.
While reaffirming that the PDP remains Nigeria’s most enduring political structure, Lamido insisted that no court victory can compensate for the collapse of trust, unity, and ideological discipline within the party, stressing that what is left is a “victory that has injured the victor and weakened the house itself.”
“I really, really don’t know how to react to this issue. Victory is ours, but then victory is for whom? It’s a party, which is like a family, and for no reason whatsoever, we found ourselves in this kind of foolish fight, this civil war. There is no basis for it. PDP has a history, a shared legacy, a shared heritage. It is something we all worked for and toiled for. I don’t see why we should even fight in the first instance over positions, over leadership.”
“The party is built on democracy. The main pillar of PDP is democracy — people, party, democracy. So there is no problem if within us we struggle for positions. That is normal. But it should not get to a personal level where pride and ego come into it. To me, it has never been personal.”
“If I emerge through a smooth, inclusive, transparent process, then it becomes a collective effort. The victory belongs to the party, not to the individual. If I lose, I have not lost. If I win, it is not my personal victory. It is about fulfilling our common objective.”
“My plan, if I had become chairman, was to invite Obasanjo, Atiku, Jonathan, Namadi, former Senate Presidents and Speakers — the symbols of the party. PDP made them, and we have every right to bring them back, to use that symbolism to send a strong message that PDP is back.”
“A number of people in APC are more than willing to come back to PDP. They are unhappy but feel safe where they are. They say, ‘give us something strong, something protective, and we will return.’ That was the vision.”
“What pains me most is that those who created this problem have abandoned PDP. The same people who led the convention, who were supposed to anchor the party, have left. They are now freelancing, meeting other political parties. Is that fair?”
“It is victory, yes, but the cost is enormous. The cost to party cohesion, to unity, is too much. It is a painful victory because it has deepened division. It should not have been like this.”
“No matter what you do legally, you still need a political solution. There is no purely legal solution in politics. I said we should be talking to each other before and after the court processes, but it was difficult.”
“I cannot celebrate because I can see the consequences of the judgment. It has injured the party. The division has taken a personal dimension.”
“If only we can all come back — all of us. PDP is a natural home. There is a difference between a house and a home. A home is where you grow, where you have roots. Other parties are just houses of convenience.”
“In Nigeria today, we don’t teach history. And if you don’t know your history, you cannot build your future. That is part of our problem.”
“Let us forgive each other. We are brothers and sisters. Why should we be prisoners of the moment? Life is dynamic. Today’s anger should not destroy tomorrow’s future.”
“The most dangerous thing is a family fight. When a family begins to fight itself, it becomes very bitter. But for the sake of posterity, we must forgive and come back together.”
“I don’t see any party that can dominate Nigeria in the next 50 years more than PDP. Other parties are ad hoc — arrangements of convenience.”
“If you go to APC or ADC, you will find PDP people. So who am I fighting? That is the irony. It is all PDP in different forms.”
“What has this judgment added to the economy? Has it improved security? Has it reduced poverty? We are all focused on politics while the real issues are abandoned.”
“We won the case, yes. But at what cost? How do we rebuild trust, love, and unity in the party again?”
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