Nigeria's once-dominant Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is facing an existential crisis ahead of January's general election, with a bitter leadership dispute now playing out in the courts threatening its very survival. The party, which governed Nigeria for 16 unbroken years after founding in 1998, has collapsed dramatically since losing power in 2015, a decline that accelerated sharply through 2025 as a wave of defections stripped it of state control and internal factionalism left it effectively paralysed.

Under presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, the PDP once controlled most of Nigeria's 36 states before losing to Muhammadu Buhari and the newly formed APC in 2015. It began 2025 holding eight states but now holds none, after five governors defected to the ruling APC and Oyo state slipped away last month; it has also lost prominent figures such as former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. The crisis peaked in November 2025 when a majority faction held a disputed convention in Ibadan that expelled Nyesom Wike, a party co-founder and rival faction leader who is legally recognised as heading the true PDP, leaving the party locked in a paralysing standoff over its identity ahead of the election.