Kabiru Turaki’s PDP Triumph Overshadowed by ₦850m Blackmail Scandal

In the glitzy halls of Ibadan’s convention center, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki clinched the PDP national chairmanship with 1,516 votes. Cheers erupted. Yet outside, whispers of a darker story refused to fade.

Hadiza Musa Baffa, once his teenage ward, says the nightmare began in 2014. A hotel room in Asokoro. A driver’s betrayal. A rape, she claims, that chained her to years of silence and shame.

She alleges eight pregnancies, each ended against her will. Fetuses, she says, handed to the driver for money rituals. A ninth child survived. Turaki, she insists, is the father. A DNA test showed 99.99995% match.

But the law disagreed.

On September 4, 2025, an Upper Area Court in Abuja slammed the door. Islamic law, it ruled, rejects DNA for children born outside wedlock. The test? Inadmissible. Turaki’s rights? Protected. Baffa was gagged, perpetually from claiming paternity in public.

Police dug deeper. Hospitals found no trace of abortions. One doctor she named? Dead, they said, or never existed. Records showed only miscarriages and drug treatments. Her story, investigators concluded, was riddled with holes.

Then came the money.

₦850 million. One lump sum to bury the past. ₦47 million to clear luxury rent arrears. A mansion in Maitama or Asokoro. Turaki refused. Baffa’s own father wrote to police: this wasn’t justice, it was extortion, orchestrated by a third party.

She apologized via WhatsApp. Then denied sending it. Withdrew her petitions. Then claimed she never did.

Court records paint a different picture. Cases struck out. Injunctions issued. Even her fraud allegations, ₦27 million swindled from Turaki’s allies boomeranged. Rights groups now want her prosecuted.

Turaki calls it a “campaign of calumny.” A desperate cash grab by a troubled ex-protégé. He admits guardianship, her mother begged him years ago but says he cut ties after her scams cost him dearly.

Yet the videos keep circulating. Tearful. Raw. #JusticeForHadizaBaffa trends on TikTok. Comments split: victim or villain?

Today, as Turaki steps into power, the scandal clings like smoke. His victory speech promised unity. But for many Nigerians scrolling late into the night, one question lingers:

Can a party heal a nation when its leader can’t escape his past?