ABUJA — Bauchi State Governor and PDP Governors’ Forum Chairman Senator Bala Mohammed unleashed a raw plea to President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday, imploring him to “allow the PDP to survive” as the opposition party’s headquarters remains under police siege and its factions trade expulsions in a blood feud that threatens to gut Nigeria’s democracy.
Barely 48 hours after a tear-gas-laced brawl at Wadata Plaza that saw Mohammed and Oyo’s Seyi Makinde flee choking clouds of riot gas, the Bauchi helmsman—flanked by allies in a hastily convened presser—painted a picture of existential torment. “Tinubu should allow PDP to survive. We are going through hell,” Mohammed declared, his voice cracking with exhaustion after a night of thwarted meetings and barbed-wire blockades.
The outburst, captured in a viral Channels TV clip, underscores a party on the brink: FCT Minister Nyesom Wike’s camp has dissolved state executives in Bauchi, Oyo, Ekiti, and Lagos, while expelling Mohammed, Makinde, Zamfara’s Dauda Lawal, new Chairman Tanimu Turaki, and PDP elders like Bode George and Adolphus Wabara.
“This is not just a PDP fight—it’s about democracy’s survival,” Mohammed thundered, alleging Wike’s “impunity and arrogance,” fueled by Tinubu’s tacit backing, aims to neuter the opposition ahead of 2027. “We are in hell because people from within, empowered by external forces, are destroying us. But we will lay down our lives to protect this mandate.”
He invoked party laws to affirm the Ibadan convention’s legitimacy, where Turaki’s faction triumphed, and vowed judicial recourse to reclaim the secretariat from Wike’s “interlopers.”
The chaos erupted Tuesday when Turaki’s NWC—bolstered by Mohammed and Makinde—stormed the HQ for an inaugural session, only to collide with Wike loyalists under acting chair Mohammed Abdurrahman, who had summoned a rival NEC. Fists, shouts, and sirens ensued; anti-riot squads dispersed the melee with gas, but not before mutual purges: Wike’s group booted the governors and Turaki, while the Ibadan victors ousted Wike, Abdurrahman, and ex-Secretary Samuel Anyanwu.
Wednesday’s lockdown—razor wire coiling like a serpent around the gates—froze operations, stranding staff and symbolizing the party’s paralysis. FCT Police, citing “higher orders,” rebuffed queries, but whispers point to federal intervention to cool tempers. The African Democratic Congress (ADC) decried it as a “disturbing assault on multiparty democracy,” accusing Tinubu’s APC of orchestrating a “one-party siege” via Wike’s infiltration.
Mohammed, a vocal Tinubu critic on policies from subsidy removal to tax hikes, framed the strife as orchestrated sabotage. “Tinubu’s government is intimidating us, but we are strong and resolute,” he said, echoing May’s accusations of federal arm-twisting on PDP governors.
Yet, in a nod to unlikely olive branches, he recalled praising Tinubu’s 2023 Rivers mediation, insisting his barbs stem from policy woes, not personal animus.
As X erupts with #SavePDP hashtags and memes of Wike as “APC mole,” analysts warn the implosion could hand Tinubu a 2027 cakewalk. “A fractured PDP is music to the APC,” quipped one Enugu-based commentator. Turaki, undeterred, rallied: “We oblige the chairman’s invitation… Enough is enough.” For now, with courts looming and governors unbowed, Nigeria’s opposition hangs by a thread—its hellish inferno a stark referendum on Tinubu’s tolerance for rivals.
