Wike, Turaki factions clash over Ekiti PDP leadership, governorship candidate

The Peoples Democratic Party factions loyal to Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, and former Minister Taminu Turaki have clashed over leadership and the governorship candidate in Ekiti State.

The Turaki-led group claims to be the authentic PDP leadership in the state and has presented Wole Oluyede as the party’s governorship candidate for the June 20 election. The Wike-backed faction, however, rejected this, insisting that the authentic PDP structure has not recognised any candidate for the Ekiti governorship.

At a press briefing last week, Turaki group’s State Chairman, Tunji Odeyemi, dismissed the Wike-bloc’s state congress as “unconstitutional and not binding on the party’s recognised leadership.”

“I want to state clearly that the congress held recently [by the Wike group] has nothing to do with our leadership. Our mandate, freely given on October 1, 2025, remains valid, and there has been no court order dissolving it,” Odeyemi said.

He referenced a Federal High Court judgment that affirmed Oluyede as the PDP governorship candidate and directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise him, noting that the ruling resolved earlier disputes over the party’s candidate.

Odeyemi accused the Wike-backed group of trying to distract the party from preparing for the June 20 election, calling their recent congress a “charade.”

The Wike-backed bloc, led by State Chairman Lanre Omolase, countered that the Appeal Court judgment recognising only the Abduraham Mohammed-led National Caretaker Committee had settled the issue of factionalism within the PDP.

“The authentic PDP members at all levels are with the Abduraham Mohammed-led National Caretaker Committee. Immediately the Ibadan convention collapsed, it meant that nothing was left of the Turaki group,” Omolase said.

He added that the Wike-led committee had dissolved the Turaki faction’s State Working Committee (SWC) before holding its own congress where the current SWC emerged. “From the onset, the Turaki group’s Ekiti SWC was not properly constituted. What they called state congress in Ekiti at that time was a charade, where positions were merely shared among themselves. It was impunity of the highest order,” he said.

The Wike-backed SWC also rejected Oluyede’s claim to the governorship candidacy.

In a statement signed by Omolase and Publicity Secretary Femi Phillips stressed that the purported candidature of Dr Oluyede has not been presented to, recognised by, or processed through any duly constituted organ of the party.

“The PDP in Ekiti State has not formally received any aspirant, let alone endorsed a gubernatorial candidate. No individual is greater than the party or its constitution. All political ambitions must be pursued in accordance with established rules, guidelines, and due process.

“If such a candidacy had been formally acknowledged, the individual concerned would have been visible at official party functions, including the recent inauguration of the State Executive Committee.

“Throughout the tenure of the caretaker committee in the state and following the judgments delivered by the Federal High Court in Ibadan and the Court of Appeal in Abuja, there has been no documented evidence of Dr Oluyede’s participation, alignment, or formal engagement with the substantive party structure in Ekiti State,” the statement concluded.