A faction of the Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos loyal to Nyesom Wike, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has suspended Bode George—one of the party’s most prominent elder statesmen—along with 23 other members, in the latest escalation of a factional conflict that has hollowed out the PDP’s presence in Nigeria’s commercial capital.
The suspensions were announced on Friday in a statement signed by the chairman and secretary of the party’s state disciplinary committee, Kayode Ogunbiyi and Desmond Agbo, who said the action had been made necessary by conduct “capable of causing disaffection among members.” The committee said it had reviewed a series of petitions at a sitting on 26 May alleging anti-party activities and deliberate breaches of the PDP constitution before arriving at its decision.
George, a former deputy national chairman of the party and a figure who has been a fixture of Lagos political life for decades, has clashed repeatedly in recent years with factions aligned to Wike. In what appeared to be a pointed act of reinforcement, the committee said it had also reviewed an earlier suspension of George issued by the party’s National Executive Committee and reaffirmed that he remains suspended under that earlier ruling as well. He had not responded publicly to the latest action at the time of publication.
Among the 23 others caught up in the sweep are Aduke Maina, Abimbola Ogunkelu, Laja Adeoye, Tunji Shele, Sunday Olaifa, Gbenga Adegbesan, Rita Orji, Kofoworola Bucknor and Onikepo Oshodi. The committee said it had also examined cases involving members allegedly collaborating with rival parties or engaging in political activities against the PDP’s interests — a broad formulation that critics of such proceedings often argue is deployed to silence internal dissent rather than address genuine disloyalty.
All suspended members have been barred from participating in party activities in Lagos or representing the PDP in any capacity. The statement went further, warning that legal action could follow if any of those suspended were found acting against the party’s interests in the state.
The move lays bare the scale of internal dysfunction within a party that, despite remaining the principal opposition force at the federal level, has been riven by power struggles — many of them traced to Wike’s outsized and frequently destabilising influence over its internal affairs. In Lagos, where the PDP has long played a distant second fiddle to the ruling All Progressives Congress, the purge risks further depleting whatever organisational coherence the party retains in the state.
