Armed thugs aboard two roller coaster buses attack Turaki and other PDP leaders

The suspected hoodlums, on Saturday, disrupted a rally of the Kabiru Turaki-led Interim National Working Committee (NWC) faction and other leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the A-Class Event Center in Abuja.

The incident occurred shortly after the faction’s leaders moved from their initial headquarters to interact with police personnel deployed in the area.

The Turaki-led group had earlier gathered at the party’s Area 10 office in Abuja to hold its Special National Convention, where they ratified former President Goodluck Jonathan as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2027 general elections.

According to party leaders, the use of the Area 10 office became necessary after security personnel barricaded the A-Class Event Center, which was originally supposed to host the convention.

After the brief ceremony to ratify Jonathan’s candidacy, the party leadership returned to the A-Class Event Center for what they called engagement with police officers stationed on site.

However, shortly after Turaki had concluded his speech at the scene, hooligans arriving aboard two roller coaster buses armed with heavy sticks launched a sudden assault on party officials, who were already returning to their vehicles.

The violent attack in the presence of policemen forced party leaders, journalists and other stakeholders to flee for safety, during which the mobile phone of one of the journalists was snatched away by the hoodlums.

Peace was later restored thanks to the intervention of the police and other security personnel on site.

Earlier, in his speech before the attack, Turaki, a Senior Lawyer of Nigeria (SAN), said PDP members have the right to associate and meet as per the Constitution of Nigeria.

Speaking on the spot, Turaki noted that the group was not interested in violent clashes, saying the party would instead fight with its votes during the general elections.

“No matter how opinionated they may be about themselves, or no matter how they think they can use their positions to thwart democracy, we want to tell them that Nigeria is bigger than anyone else and any group of people.

“We will not fight. The time of battle will come when we meet at the polls. We will meet you there, we will fight you there, we will defeat you there and then we will pin you to the ground,” he said.

Turaki urged party faithful to remain peaceful and reject any form of provocation as they returned to their destinations.

“I want to plead with our delegates to return to your respective destinations and resist any provocation.

“Every person you see trying to fight, believes that he has no chance of winning. We believe that we are on the right path. We believe that we will win the election. Therefore, fighting is not for us,” he said.

He commended the party leaders and members for attending the 2026 special national convention with them.