How Wadata Plaza became battlefield for PDP’s soul -

By Luminous Jannamike, Abuja

WADATA Plaza, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, national secretariat became a full-blown battleground last Tuesday as rival factions fought violently over who should control the party’s national secretariat.

Police officers from the FCT command fired tear gas again and again, and it didn’t spare anyone; governors, party leaders, supporters, even journalists. In minutes, the once-proud headquarters of the PDP turned into both the physical and symbolic centre of a desperate fight for the soul of Nigeria’s biggest opposition party.

The PDP national secretariat has always had a strange kind of feeling around it; a mix of memories, stories, and unfinished battles. In the party’s glory days, it was the beating heart of a group that once believed Nigeria’s political future belonged to them. But today, it feels more like an old, quiet shrine where forgotten powers sit and wait for someone new to believe in them again.

This week’s clash didn’t just appear suddenly. It had been building for a long time, rising quietly like heat from a fire that never went out. The two rival camps in the party, one loyal to FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and the other to Oyo Governor Seyi Makinde, have been watching each other for months. They moved cautiously around the secretariat, silent and alert, like two wolves waiting to see who would slip first.

The Plaza stopped being just an office a long time ago. It became a kind of throne room. And in politics, thrones are never given freely, people fight for them.

That’s why, last Tuesday, the newly elected National Chairman, Kabiru Turaki, SAN, walked in with the calm confidence of a man returning to something deeply personal. He wasn’t just entering a building; he was stepping back into his own story.

Every stride he took showed a man who believed this place was always meant for him, someone ready to plant his feet firmly on the ground before planting his authority across the party itself.

Possession in a party that lost its compass

In the PDP’s current confusion, the fight has gone beyond meetings and press statements. Controlling the physical space has become the biggest proof of who is really in charge. The person who holds the building holds the lifeline. The one who sits behind the main desk shapes the narrative. The one with the keys decides who enters the party’s inner room.

Things that used to feel ordinary: files, seals, meeting rooms, have suddenly turned into symbols of power and survival. So when Turaki, backed solidly by Governors Makinde and Bala Mohammed, moved to take back the Plaza, it wasn’t just another assignment. It was a message. A bold one.

Before any new leaders can talk about where the party is going, they must first stand firmly on the ground they claim to lead. Right now, the Plaza is the frontline; the place where authority is tested, proven, or shattered. In today’s PDP, controlling the space is the first step to controlling the system itself.

Tradition of mediation that has turned to dust

There was a time when the PDP settled its problems quietly. An elder would make a phone call, a few people would meet at night, and old loyalties were enough to calm everyone down. That time is gone now. All that’s left are fading memories and old wounds that never truly healed.

What happened on Tuesday showed a party that no longer trusts its elders, its systems, or even its own traditions. Letters don’t carry weight anymore. Zoning rules that used to be untouchable now feel like suggestions. Appeal committees are ignored. And conventions that once showcased unity now look like polite performances hiding deeper cracks.

What is left is raw survival instinct; territorial and almost animal, playing out in corridors and doorways. The Plaza has become a map of the party’s broken state: every door is a mini-battle, every barricade a warning, every step a quiet claim to power.

Dangerous seduction of security power

The moment the police trucks rolled in, everything changed. The tension stopped being an argument and turned into a performance. Sirens cut sharply through the air. Officers stepped out and formed a line, standing stiff like troops preparing for a siege.

These days, security has quietly become one of the biggest forces shaping political fights across the country. The PDP’s internal war is no exception. Calling in security, or keeping them away, has turned into a dangerous kind of power. It hangs over the party like a dark cloud, reminding everyone that the real struggle is no longer just between PDP factions, but between those who can use the machinery of the state and those who can’t.

And that was the most unsettling part of what happened: the scene showed that the fight inside Wadata Plaza is now bigger than the building itself. Its shadows stretch far outside its walls, into places the public cannot yet see.

The real tragedy is not the shouting or the confusion. It is how the whole drama is quietly draining energy, time, and the trust of ordinary people.

An opposition party survives by showing it is ready, steady, and united. But today, Wadata Plaza has become a sign of the opposite, a house shaking under the weight of too many clashing ambitions.

Every hour spent fighting over the secretariat is an hour taken away from rebuilding, planning, and preparing for national battles ahead. The more the building turns into a war zone, the more the party weakens.

Future that depends on who holds the keys

Everything now comes down to control; not talk, not titles, but who actually holds the keys to the Plaza. If Turaki manages to take charge of the building, the PDP might finally get a chance to start again. But if the fight drags on, that same building could turn into a permanent reminder of how deeply the party has lost its way.

The truth is clear: Wadata Plaza has stopped being just a structure of blocks and glass. It has become the PDP’s fate made visible, a place cracking under the weight of old fights the party has never been brave enough to settle.

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