The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment in the appeal filed by the Taminu Turaki faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, seeking to upturn the judgment of the Court of Appeal which nullified the conduct of the national convention held last year in Ibadan.
A five-member panel of the apex court announced on Wednesday that its judgment would be delivered on a date to be communicated to all parties in the appeal.
Justice Garba Mohammed, who led the five-member panel, made the announcement shortly after lawyers representing parties in the appeal adopted their processes as brief of their arguments, for and against the appeal.
The faction of the PDP led by Tanimu Turaki had approached the apex court to challenge the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had nullified the convention for being held in disobedience of a valid order of court.
It will be recalled that Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, had last year in a judgment restrained the then Ambassador Iliya Damagum-led National Executive Committee of the PDP from proceeding with the convention slated for November 15 and 16, 2026, in Ibadan Oyo State.
Justice Lifu had in his judgment ordered that the convention should not hold until an aspirant to the office of national chairman, former Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, is giving the opportunity to purchase interest and nomination forms to enable him participate in the convention for the election of national officers.
The party faction, however, went ahead to conduct the convention in disregard to the orders of the court.
The PDP faction had predicated its decision to conduct the convention on the grounds that the court presided by Justice Lifu lacked the jurisdiction to stop the convention as the issue brought before him was an internal matter of a political party, which no court has jurisdiction to delve into.
However, the appellate court in its judgment last month disagreed that the issue at the trial court was an internal affair of a political party which courts cannot entertain.
The three-member panel of the appellate court subsequently nullified the outcome of the convention for being held in disobedience to the order of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
Dissatisfied, the PDP camp approached the apex court praying it to accept the appeal against the lower court judgment, set the judgment aside and hold that the issue was an internal matter which both the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain.
However, the respondents urged the court to dismiss the appeal for lacking in merit.
