The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has officially escalated a brewing internal crisis to the highest levels of law enforcement, formally petitioning the Inspector General of Police to launch a comprehensive investigation into Senator Samuel Anyanwu and Hon. Abdulrahman Mohammed. At the heart of this legal standoff is a severe allegation of forgery and deceit: the PDP, represented by their legal counsel, Ogbeide Associates, claims that these two politicians deliberately fed false information to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). By allegedly misrepresenting the party’s leadership structure in a formal missive dated November 3, 2025, the accused are being charged with attempting to subvert the established authority of the party and manipulate the electoral umpire’s records, a move the PDP views not just as an internal breach, but as a criminal act of administrative fraud.
The core of the controversy stems from a disputed letter sent to INEC, which purportedly claimed that the National Working Committee (NWC) had ousted Ambassador Umar Iliya Damagum from his role as Acting National Chairman, naming Hon. Abdulrahman Mohammed as his successor instead. The PDP’s legal team immediately pushed back, citing the official outcomes of the 608th Emergency NWC meeting held on November 1, 2025. According to the party, this meeting did not result in a leadership overhaul; rather, it led to the suspension of Senator Anyanwu and three other high-ranking officials due to their alleged engagement in anti-party activities. By contrasting the official minutes against the claims made to INEC, the party argues that the letter submitted by the duo is a fabrication, lacking any legitimate basis in the party’s verified proceedings or attendance records.
Adding a layer of deliberate deception to these allegations, the petition highlights a glaring inconsistency regarding Hon. Mohammed’s presence at the NWC meeting. Records show that while Senator Anyanwu was absent from the November 1st session, Hon. Mohammed was in attendance and was therefore fully aware of the actual resolutions passed by the committee. The PDP contends that Mohammed was intimately familiar with the fact that no motion was ever tabled or approved to install him as chairman, making his alleged involvement in sending the contradictory letter to INEC a calculated act of bad faith. This suggests that the documentation provided to the electoral commission was not merely a misunderstanding of internal party dynamics, but a premeditated attempt to bypass legal protocols and manufacture a leadership crisis from thin air.
The legal standing of the current leadership is further bolstered by existing judicial precedents, which the PDP argues the accused were well aware of when they initiated their maneuver. The petition points to a significant Federal High Court ruling from October 10, 2024, which explicitly recognized Ambassador Damagum as the legitimate Acting National Chairman and issued an injunction preventing INEC from acknowledging any documents that lacked his verified signature. The audacity of the alleged forgery is made even more apparent by the fact that Senator Anyanwu himself had previously shared this very court judgment with INEC for compliance purposes the following month. By attempting to ignore or overwrite these established legal realities, the suspects are accused of challenging the sanctity of the judicial system and the electoral body’s duty to uphold the rule of law.
Furthermore, the petition casts a critical eye toward INEC itself, questioning how such an overtly contradictory letter could have been processed or even entertained by the commission given its prior knowledge of the party’s leadership status and the court’s existing directives. The PDP suggests that there is a deeper procedural failure that needs to be scrutinized, as INEC had in its possession both the court-mandated recognition of Damagum and the NWC’s official suspension records of the implicated parties. By asking the police to probe how the commission managed this document, the party is essentially demanding a root-and-branch audit of the integrity of their communications with the electoral body, ensuring that such blatant attempts to deceive public institutions cannot succeed in the future.
Ultimately, the PDP’s legal representatives have emphasized that this petition transcends mere internal party squabbling; it is a fundamental test of institutional integrity. They argue that if public institutions can be misled by forged documents that blatantly contradict documented party processes, the entire democratic framework becomes vulnerable to manipulation by those willing to ignore the law. By requesting an urgent police investigation and offering a wealth of evidence—including internal records and decisive court judgments—the party is signaling that it will no longer tolerate the weaponization of false information. They are calling for accountability, insisting that the law must provide a firm corrective measure against those who attempt to destabilize political organizations through bureaucratic sabotage.