The Tanimu Turaki-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has abandoned its candidate, Adebayo Adedamola, and thrown its weight behind Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke ahead of the governorship election.
The faction announced its decision on Thursday, following a fresh legal victory that cleared the way for its candidate to participate in the poll.
Despite securing recognition from the Court of Appeal, the faction said the late judgment left Adedamola with little or no time to campaign effectively across the state.
The decision means the Turaki-led PDP will no longer ask its members to vote for the candidate produced by its own governorship primary.
Instead, it has directed its supporters to back Adeleke, who is contesting the election on the platform of the Accord Party.
The news was disclosed by Ini Ememobong, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP Interim National Working Committee, in a statement issued on Thursday in Abuja.
Ememobong was reacting to the Court of Appeal judgment concerning the party’s participation in the Osun governorship election.
The appellate court had upheld the nomination of Adebayo Adedamola as the candidate submitted by the Turaki-led faction of the PDP.
The court also directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately include the PDP logo on the ballot papers for the election.
According to Ememobong, the judgment settled the legal dispute over the validity of the primary conducted by the faction.
He said the party’s lawyers had briefed the interim National Working Committee on the outcome of the case.
“The panel of the court held that the party, having duly conducted primaries which were monitored by INEC and the name of the winner forwarded to the commission, there was no legal impediment to the participation of the candidate in the election.
“Specifically, it held that the access code for nomination on the portal was a mere administrative formality which cannot override the statutory provision of forwarding names to the commission, which PDP had done,” he said.
The Turaki-led faction has continued to maintain that it conducted a valid primary for the Osun governorship election.
The exercise produced Adedamola as its candidate.
However, the party’s internal crisis and the disagreement between rival PDP factions created uncertainty over which group had the authority to submit the party’s candidate to INEC.
Ememobong accused INEC of refusing to recognise the faction’s candidate after the primary.
He also alleged that the commission withheld the access codes needed by the faction to upload its candidate’s details through the nomination portal.
“The primaries that produced our candidate was peaceful, transparent, and the result uncontested.
“It was duly monitored by INEC, but the commission blatantly refused to recognise our candidate thereafter and withheld the codes for the upload of candidates from us.”
The PDP faction subsequently went to court to challenge the exclusion.
The legal battle eventually reached the Court of Appeal, which ruled in favour of the Turaki-led group and ordered INEC to place the PDP logo on the ballot.
Ememobong said the ruling represented a victory for the faction but came too late to provide its candidate with a meaningful opportunity to campaign.
“The party approached the court and today the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal by the Turaki-led PDP and directed INEC to include the party’s logo on the ballot papers for the elections,” Ememobong said.
He argued that the delay had put the PDP candidate at a major disadvantage because the election was already close.
He also criticised what he described as the treatment meted out to the faction during the nomination process.
According to him, the circumstances surrounding the case could have been avoided if the electoral process had been handled differently.
But rather than proceed with Adedamola as its candidate, the faction said it had decided to support Adeleke.
Ememobong said the decision followed consultations with important stakeholders within the party.
“Faced with the unimaginable difficulty that the situation put on PDP, the iNWC choose to throw its weight behind the Accord party candidature, Gov. Ademola Adeleke.
“As a true opposition party and in defence of multi-party democracy, and after exhaustive consultations with key stakeholders, the committee has decided to support the candidature of Gov. Adeleke of Accord party for Saturday’s governorship election.
“We therefore ask all our members to vote for Gov. Adeleke.
“We encourage them to go out on Saturday to vote, defend their votes and ensure that their votes count in the election,” he said.
The endorsement is another major development in the long-running crisis that has weakened the PDP in Osun State and at the national level.
Adeleke left the PDP in November 2025 after months of tension within the opposition party.
He subsequently joined the Accord Party and emerged as its candidate for the Osun governorship election.
The governor’s departure created a complicated situation for the PDP because the Turaki-led faction went ahead with its own primary after Adeleke had left the party.
Earlier, several PDP members in Osun had also moved towards the Accord Party following Adeleke’s defection.
In March, Senate Minority Leader Lere Oyewumi, who represents Osun West Senatorial District, left the PDP for Accord amid the crisis rocking the opposition party.
The Turaki faction said its latest decision was not about abandoning the principles of opposition politics.
Instead, Ememobong said the group wanted its supporters to participate actively in the election and ensure that the final result reflected the will of voters.
He warned against violence and attempts to manipulate the electoral process.
“Elections must be a true reflection of the people’s wish, freely expressed through the ballot. Anything short of that is robbery and must not be allowed to stand,” he said.
The faction therefore urged its members and supporters to participate in the election peacefully, protect their votes and ensure that the outcome reflects the choice of the electorate.
