Political strategist and founding National Secretary of the Alliance for Democracy, Prof. Udenta Udenta, has accused key state institutions — including President Bola Tinubu, INEC, and the Nigeria Police of actively destabilising the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), alleging that recent actions taken by Minister Nyesom Wike were executed directly “on the orders of the President.”
Speaking during an interview with ARISE News on Thursday, Prof. Udenta said the PDP crisis is “no longer organic” but externally engineered, insisting that the ruling APC is working deliberately to weaken the opposition.
Prof. Udenta declared that the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, was not acting independently in his interventions at the PDP Secretariat.
“Let Wike be. Wike this, Wike that — it is not helpful. Wike is not an autonomous administrative force, political force, or governance force. He is a dependent force,” he said.
“Wike went to Wadata Plaza on behalf of the President because the President was at Wadata Plaza — not Wike. If Wike holds a press briefing, it is the President holding the briefing. If there is a threat to people, it is the President issuing the threat.”
“The minister is battering through for his President. It is his alter ego. The President appointed him, owns the FCT by law, and every minister speaks for the President with clearance from the Presidency.”
Prof. Udenta argued that Wike’s role in the crisis is not a matter of personal ambition but a “deliberate institutional choice” by the Presidency.
He added that the PDP’s internal issues were not unusual, but they had been escalated by outside forces.
“The crisis I am talking about is an organic crisis. Every organisation faces conflict. But the PDP crisis is unending for a simple reason: there is an external force, an increasing external agency, right at the heart of the mix,”he said.
“As we struggle to rebuild the party and grow the brand, the Presidency and the APC are working to diminish the party.”
He argued that the APC fears the PDP because the two parties remain evenly matched across the country.
Prof. Udenta sharply criticised INEC, saying the electoral body has refused to take a clear position on the PDP’s leadership dispute.
“INEC has a mandate to be clear and unequivocal about its stand on the PDP leadership crisis. INEC does not need to rely on the courts to determine what it wants,”he said.
“In Ekiti, INEC’s actions showed it did not accept Abdurrahman as acting chairman. But later, INEC accepted Ambassador Damagun. Did INEC accept the suspension of four NWC members? INEC has not spoken.”
He also accused INEC of selective obedience to court directives:
“A court said ‘don’t go’, a court said ‘go’. INEC chose the one that said ‘don’t go’. INEC should speak today. Its silence is no longer good enough.”
He said the party had met all requirements for its Ibadan convention, including issuing the statutory 21-day notice.
Udenta accused the Nigeria Police of enabling the factional occupation of the PDP Secretariat.
“The new chairman of the party, Tanimu Turaki SAN’s son, went to the police to complain that some people planned to take over the secretariat. The police assured him nothing of such would happen,”he said.
“Yet they allowed the Anyanwu faction to enter at 5am while the police watched. The police are complicit because if they had shut the place down from the start, Nigeria would not have witnessed that spectacle.”
“They fired over 200 canisters of tear gas on sitting governors, former governors and party leaders. You know what happened to Chiroma in Kano years ago — he didn’t survive tear gas. This was under the supervision of a certain DCP.”
Udenta said the ambiguity in INEC’s handling of the PDP matter was deliberate.
“There is no institutional weakness here. It is a deliberate institutional choice to hypnotise INEC in vagueness and ambiguity,”he said.
“PDP knows Damagum was the chairman before the convention. It is not legally compulsory for INEC to even attend the convention. At the end of litigation, clarity will come.”
On the question of who currently holds legitimate authority in the PDP, Prof. Udenta said:
“PDP believes it will triumph at the end of the day when legal clarity comes. Currently, Tanimu Turaki SAN is the chairman leading the new NWC. But the overall problem remains: you cannot resolve an internal crisis when a potent and powerful force — the President — is intervening through a minister.”
Udenta urged the media and the public to stop personalising the crisis.
“Why can’t we resolve today, using this platform to let the minister be and focus where we should focus? The President and his team sent the minister forth,”he said.
“If the President calls Wike and says, ‘come to me in the APC, work with me, relate with me, and leave the PDP alone’, the party’s crisis will end tomorrow.”
He concluded that public awareness was crucial:
“By going public, we are sensitising the people. It may be abrasive and noisy, but it is not for noise. It is a specific mandate by the President.”
Boluwatife Enome
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