A Federal High Court in Abuja has restrained the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from removing Umar Damagum as the Party’s acting National Chairman.
In a Friday judgment delivered via Zoom, Presiding Judge, Peter Lifu ordered that aside from Damagum, no other person should be recognized as the PDP’s acting national chair until the party’s convention scheduled for December 2025.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/579/2024, was filed by Umar Maina, Yobe State PDP Chairman.
Maina alleged that some stakeholders had been holding meetings to forcefully remove Damagum from office, promoting Phillip Salawu, former Kogi State deputy governor, as his replacement.
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Despite sending two written petitions to PDP National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, no action was taken, prompting Maina to seek the court’s intervention.
Through counsel Joshua Musa, Maina prayed the court to invoke Articles 45, 47 and 67 of the PDP constitution to stop Damagum’s ousting.
Specifically, Maina asked the court to declare that the PDP National Chairmanship rotates between northern and southern regions, exclusively through procedures outlined in the party’s constitution.
Judge Lifu ruled in favor of the plaintiff, stating Damagum can only be replaced at the PDP’s national convention or through a court order.
Attempting to truncate the northern region’s four-year tenure without the national convention, he said, would violate the PDP’s constitution.
