Jacob Mark is a former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Legal Adviser. In this interview, he speaks on the efforts by the Taminu Turak-led leadership to reposition the party ahead of the 2027 general election, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports

What can you say about the meeting of the leadership of the PDP with former President Goodluck Jonathan, and the action of some of your party members in deepening the crisis in your party?

It is unfortunate that people who were brought up are using their left hands to point at their fathers’ houses and it’s a catastrophe. When you juxtapose this with people who were local government chairmen, became governors, became ministers and you find them talking as if they were born as ministers or as governors, you know that Nigeria is being taken for a ride by the elite and it’s unfortunate.

So, the discussions with the former president really came at the right time. And there must be a way of putting people in check. Let’s march the brakes and stop this movement to nowhere because the Nigerian politician must respect the citizens.

It’s clear you’re optimistic that the meeting with the former president is something that marks the beginning of a new trajectory. Do you think that the court cases in the party will be resolved politically or will it be dragged on to their final conclusion?

Personally, I don’t believe that political cases should be resolved by courts. And my position is guided largely by the decisions of the Supreme Court in a plethora of cases where the Supreme Court has consistently maintained that the internal affairs of political parties are a “no go area” for the courts.

The judiciary should not be bombarded by political cases and judges should have nothing to do with cases that are purely political. So, I believe as a person that the approach of solving these problems politically is in the right direction. I like what the current national chairman of the PDP is doing, reaching out and speaking to people is very good.

That has been missing. When leaders elected to run political parties begin to behave like emirs and wait for people to come and bow before them, it causes problems. But a serious leader should be the one that goes out, reaches out to people, engages people, particularly senior members of the party, engages them, and discusses with them.

So, we are excited that this is the direction the current national chairman is taking. It is in the right direction. I will say again, political issues ought to be resolved politically. You don’t carry the problem, the domestic affairs of your family, and hand it over to the stranger to resolve. You expose yourself to anything he wants. He also gets to know what you are doing in-house.

He can embarrass you by giving you wrong advice or wrong decisions. And we have seen it happen, where a handful of people, like in the last National Working Committee (NWC), four people out of the leadership that is made up of 21 people, have taken the party for a ride. Their tenure has expired but they have refused to go.

They have constituted themselves into a caretaker committee. They have called people from nowhere and appointed them as Board of Trustees (BoT) members and as National Executive Committee (NEC) members, and they are causing problems all because the issues were allowed to cascade and transmute to the corridors of the courts.

This shouldn’t happen when leadership is properly guided and advised. So for me, the steps being taken by the current national leadership is one of the best, and it’s the best that any political party should pursue. Don’t take your issues to courts.

If the PDP gets the right presidential candidate to contest the election in 2027, there will be an upstage

The courts are not meant to run political organisations or social organisations, for that matter. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said so. And it’s sad that our courts, particularly the high courts, have allowed themselves to be drawn into the administrative issues of the PDP.

They ought to have thrown those cases away. When you come to court on an issue that is purely administrative and purely regarding and surrounded by the issues of internal administration, no court should allow you to take advantage of its jurisdiction.

But we have issues, both with the political party and the judiciary, where people in clear aberration to the position of the Supreme Court will still entertain such cases.

And it’s very clear that recently the Supreme Court in the cases involving the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Accord Party restated the same position in December 2025, that internal affairs of political parties must be resolved by the political parties, and the courts should be saved from the terrible thing that happened with politics.

And you can see that has undrawn the courts to a lot of problems, even the litany of cases that are pending before the courts are sufficient “wahala” for the courts.

Now politicians find it easy to go and inundate the courts with more pressure, bringing all these things that are purely their internal affairs to the courts. That shouldn’t be allowed to happen. And so going in the direction of solving issues politically, as has been done by the current national chairman, is a welcome development.

You talked pretty highly of the former president and how he has really put in a breath of fresh air in the party. When you’re looking at the real causes of these internal crises that we’re seeing within the PDP, do you think that it’s because there’s a single person who wields too much power, if so, do you think Wike falls into that category?

Nobody should be guessing. Certainly, Nyesom Wike falls into that category. Somebody who was not known anywhere in Nigeria, became a local government chairman, then became a chief of staff, thereafter he became governor and then minister. And suddenly he is a god with a small G. I heard him the other day saying that nobody should come near Rivers State. He’s the Lord, Mayor of Rivers State.

And for me, Rivers State is one of those states that boast of the high caliber of educated people. In my profession as a lawyer, we revere Rivers State because of the kind of people that come from there. In my profession, we highly adore them. But it’s embarrassing that a young man like Wike will come and beat everybody to submission and he’s dancing all over the place with nobody to call him to order. It’s an embarrassment.

Nigeria needs to sit down and think. This issue of people decamping to one party is a threat to democracy. Some of them have said it clearly. We are tempted to agree that while they are shifting to APC, it’s not because the APC has performed, it’s not because the records are positive. No, it’s because they say that in 2027, election results will be written by INEC for the ruling party. Nobody wants to lose out simply because he’s in a different political party.

This is the main cause of the defection from the National Assembly to the governors and every other person. It’s not because people are happy. You can’t go to some villages and campaign in the name of APC. They’ll chase you out. That’s what we have started seeing in the north, where members of the National Assembly who went home in December were beaten up.

And this trend is going to continue because people are in pain. And yet the elite, the VIPs, are defecting to the party that is bringing pain to them. And they’re so arrogant about it. They’re unapologetic about it. We may not have clear-cut ideologies in the political parties. But if you go to my village, for instance, we have our groups. We have our beliefs. We know who stands for us.

We know the political parties that have been there for us. So, once you move out of that political party, you have lost the election. And they know it. But at the elite level, they say there is no ideology, so they can shift from one political party to the other. But if you go to your own environment, you know who has always been aligned to outside forces.

You know who doesn’t come for your cultural meeting. You know who doesn’t identify with your people. But because you know who belongs to you, you vote for that person. That is traceable to our Nigerian system. So when the elites behave as if once the governor moves, everything moves with him, they’re making a mistake.

And they’re going to be shocked. Because unless, of course, what they’re saying is true, that there’ll be no elections, that the elections will be written by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for them. If elections will indeed take place, and every vote will count, there are going to be shocks in 2027.

Do you think that is still possible for any party to upstage, overtake and beat APC with the PDP having cases in court, Labour Party not so sure of itself, and then an array of smaller political parties, while the APC is consolidating?

Well, the discussions we have had so far at the foundation, let the issues be taken up politically. We shouldn’t allow the courts to be the ones to determine political issues. I’m an advocate of political solutions to issues. And that is why I’m happy that the national leadership is going around.

There’s nothing wrong, and it’s encouraging to see the national chairman leading his other colleagues to lead leaders of note. Even those who have left the party, like Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, there’s absolutely good faith in that, and I’m encouraged by that. So, first of all, the PDP can make headway if political issues are addressed politically.

Secondly, if we get the right presidential candidate to contest the election in 2027, there will be an upstage. And I tell you, all these movements, like I said, happen because there’s an assumption that there’ll be no election, that the election result will be written, and that the candidate will be declared, whether people vote or not.

But that is a threat to democracy, not to PDP, and that is what Nigerians should stand up against. And we’re aware that most of these governors and members of the national and state assemblies are moving because that assumption is largely and widely believed. So, where does the Nigerian person stand? Where do the electorate stand?

They have a right in this country to put their feet down and say no to what is happening. Nigeria is a large country made up of widely and highly educated people, made up of people that can say no to nonsense. Let them allow every opposition party to walk freely. Let the Federal Government withdraw its police from the party secretariat of PDP.

Without a court order, the federal forces have taken over the PDP national secretariat and are barricading it, and they’re keeping policemen there on a daily watch while the streets are being ravaged by armed robbers, while a nurse could be pushed out of the car and died along the Kubuwa-Suleja road.

How do you think that the uncertainty in the PDP can be resolved, even with all the issues on the ground?

I’m happy you said that there is jostling in the African Democratic Congress (ADC) because they have their problems. In my party, with a political approach to political issues, it can take one week. It can take 30 days to resolve these issues.

And that is what the national leadership is doing. I believe so much in them because that is the right thing to do. Political issues must get political solutions. And nobody should wait for the courts. Even the courts are properly also doing their work. The parties I know have exchanged their briefs. Everybody has filed his papers.

Both sides have filed and it is just for the Court of Appeal to give a date for everybody to come and adopt his submissions. There should be a date for hearing within the next few weeks so that the matters can be resolved once and for all. For me, I’ll keep emphasising that the candidate that will be produced by the PDP matters a lot.

And I’m happy for the fact that already we have passed one of the milestones, which is that the seat for president has been zoned to the south. That has been resolved.

Other political parties, particularly other ones, besides the APC, haven’t done that. And there are problems with that. So for me, we’ve already gone ahead to solve one of the major challenges, which is zoning. And so, shopping for a candidate will not be a problem once the political issues are resolved politically.