Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
The political battle over Nigeria's 2027 general elections has erupted into open warfare within the ruling All Progressives Congress, with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, launching a scathing attack on governors elected on the party's platform, accusing them of being "politically lazy" and using President Bola Tinubu as a shield for their own failures.
The confrontation, which has been building for weeks, reached a boiling point on Tuesday when Wike appeared on Arise Television's Prime Time programme and dismissed the APC Governors Forum's opposition to his Rainbow Coalition with characteristic bluntness. "They are politically lazy," Wike said. "When you have your local problems, don't use Mr President as your excuse." His remarks came just hours after the governors, led by their chairman and Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma, issued a firm resolution rejecting any political arrangement they believe could undermine President Tinubu's re-election bid or weaken the party ahead of the 2027 polls.
The roots of the dispute lie in the Rainbow Coalition, a cross-party political movement Wike founded in 2025 under what he describes as the "Renewed Hope Family." The coalition, which draws members from both the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, is designed to mobilise support for Tinubu's second-term bid while allowing politicians to contest governorship, National Assembly and state assembly elections under different party platforms. Wike, a PDP chieftain serving in an APC-led federal government, insists the coalition is not an APC structure but a vehicle for Tinubu's re-election. "The coalition is a platform for other political parties that are pleased with the good works of Tinubu and are supporting his re-election," he said. "It has nothing to do with APC. Rather, it is our own way of mobilising support across political parties for Mr President, who has done well to deserve a second term."
The APC governors, however, see things very differently. Meeting at the Imo State Governor's Lodge in Abuja on Monday night, the Progressive Governors Forum resolved unanimously that its members would not participate in, support or endorse any alliance or political arrangement capable of undermining the President's re-election, weakening the APC or adversely affecting any candidate of the party at any level. Uzodimma, who also serves as Secretary of the Tinubu Campaign Council, said the governors would exclusively support APC candidates in all elections and warned against the creation of parallel political structures capable of causing confusion, divided loyalty or competing interests within the party. "The forum has no intention to support any candidate at any level that is not an APC candidate because our candidates who are contesting the election are being sponsored by our party," Uzodimma said. The governors also pledged to take charge of Tinubu's re-election campaign across their respective states and align the party's campaign machinery with the President's strategic objectives.
Wike's response was swift and unsparing. Through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka, the FCT Minister declared that his political commitment for 2027 was to Tinubu's re-election and not to APC candidates contesting other positions. He challenged the governors to concentrate on their own state elections, declaring that he never promised to help them win. "I won't be the one to help people win elections in their states," Wike said. "Politics is local. Those having problems in their states should resolve them instead of using the President's re-election to whip up sentiment." He also took a direct swipe at Uzodimma, questioning how the APC won two Senate seats in Imo State in 2023 when Tinubu secured less than 15 per cent of the presidential vote in the same election. "Was it Rainbow Coalition? Were the voters confused?" Wike asked. "If in 2023, the voters in Imo, Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi voted APC in the Senatorial election and voted another party in the presidential election, they won't be confused in 2027 provided we all support the president genuinely this time."
The minister also pushed back against suggestions that his support for Tinubu should automatically translate into support for APC candidates at all levels, arguing that voters can distinguish between presidential and state elections. He cited the political activities of governors such as Anambra's Chukwuma Soludo, Osun's Ademola Adeleke and Abia's Alex Otti to reinforce his point. "Take Soludo, Adeleke and Otti. Does it mean that their candidates will not present their other candidates? This thing they are saying does not have any basis," he said. Wike maintained that the disagreements surrounding his political activities did not start with his decision to support Tinubu, recalling that he had faced opposition even when he was governor of Rivers State and later as FCT minister. "This thing did not start today," he said. "They were not happy that I was Minister of FCT. Also, they were unhappy when I was governor."
The Peoples Democratic Party has weighed in on the controversy, faulting the APC governors for blaming Wike for their political challenges. In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, the PDP's National Publicity Secretary, Jungudo Haruna Mohammed, said the governors were looking in the wrong direction. "The APC Governors' Forum should understand that Wike is not their problem; their problem is their poor governance and failure to meet the expectations of their people," Mohammed said. He described the governors' opposition to Wike's support for Tinubu as driven by fear that their records in office could be exposed during the 2027 elections, and accused them of making a "fundamental political miscalculation" by demanding that Wike should neither support nor field candidates capable of challenging APC governors and their anointed candidates.
The political storm has already spread across several states, with tensions playing out in Rivers, Kwara, Gombe and Cross River, where the coalition's expansion has upturned old loyalties and split ruling party ranks. Some powerful blocs within the APC are said to be pushing back against the arrangement over fears that coalition candidates flying different party flags could confuse rural voters and split the vote, damaging Tinubu's 2027 presidential chances. Wike has accused Uzodimma and Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of sponsoring falsehoods about the coalition, alleging they were behind claims against the movement because of its increasing acceptance and membership.
The confrontation exposes a growing fault line within the pro-Tinubu camp over whether support for the President's second-term bid should automatically translate into support for APC candidates at governorship and legislative levels. It also raises questions about the durability of the political alliance that brought Tinubu to power in 2023, when Wike and the G5 governors of the PDP refused to support their party's presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and instead backed the APC flagbearer. Wike insists he never met with APC governors before he and other members of the G5 supported Tinubu in 2023, stressing that his support for 2027 is exclusively for the President. As the battle lines harden and both sides dig in, the coming months will test whether the APC can manage its internal contradictions or whether the Rainbow Coalition becomes the wedge that splits the ruling party's coalition ahead of the most consequential election in Nigeria's recent history.
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