Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
A political storm is sweeping through Nigeria’s ruling party, and the man at its centre is not even a member of the All Progressives Congress. Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and a lifelong Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, has built a cross-party political machine that is now threatening the very states his ally President Bola Tinubu needs to win re-election in 2027.
The National Rainbow Coalition, as Wike calls it, began as a local arrangement in Rivers State, bringing together the PDP, APC, Labour Party and Action Alliance under a single banner to support Tinubu’s presidential bid. But it has since morphed into a national movement with candidates in multiple states, and its expansion has triggered an open confrontation with the Progressive Governors Forum, the powerful body of APC state chief executives chaired by Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma.
The breaking point came on Monday night when the PGF met behind closed doors at the Imo State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja and issued a communiqué that left no room for ambiguity. The governors unanimously resolved that they would not participate in, support or endorse any political arrangement capable of undermining President Tinubu’s re-election, weakening the APC, or adversely affecting any candidate of the party at any level. Uzodimma said the governors’ campaign commitment was exclusively to all APC candidates, and that all levels of the party campaign architecture would align with the expectations of the President and the strategic objectives of the party. In plain terms, the APC governors told Wike they would not back his coalition.
Wike’s response was characteristically combative. In an interview on Arise News, he dismissed the governors as politically lazy, insisted he had never approached their forum for any alliance, and made clear he was not answerable to them. “There is no day I went to the Governors’ Forum to align with any rainbow coalition,” he said. “I have never sat with the APC Progressive Governors’ Forum; I have not been part of that.” He accused Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma and Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of leading a campaign against him. “Take, for example, the Governor of Kwara,” Wike said. “Anytime he sees a snake, it is Wike. Anytime he sees a reptile, it is Wike. Anything he does not like, it is Wike.”
The core of the dispute is a straightforward political calculation. Wike’s coalition supports Tinubu for President while simultaneously backing candidates from other parties for governorship, Senate and House of Representatives seats. Because presidential and National Assembly elections are held on the same day, the APC governors fear that voters will be confused by candidates flying different party flags under the same coalition umbrella. They argue that this arrangement could split votes, weaken APC candidates at the state and federal legislative levels, and ultimately hurt Tinubu’s own vote tally. Wike counters that his support is for Tinubu as an individual, not for the APC as a party, and that politicians in other parties, including PDP governors supporting the President, can maintain their own party structures while backing him at the presidential level.
The states where this battle is most acute tell the story of how deeply the coalition has penetrated APC territory. In Rivers State, where the coalition first took shape, Wike has united four major parties and backed Kingsley Chinda, a former PDP Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, for governor after his defection to the APC. Chinda’s move remains the subject of litigation, and the choice has reportedly caused disquiet among coalition members from the riverine areas, who argue that a candidate from their region should have been preferred. The coalition picked Major Jack, the Majority Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, as Chinda’s running mate.
In Kwara State, the coalition has joined forces with aggrieved APC members and the political structure of former Senate President Bukola Saraki. Senator Saliu Mustapha, who contested the APC governorship primary and later faced a battle over his Senate return, resigned from the party and aligned with the coalition. Wike accused Governor AbdulRazaq of replacing all three serving APC senators and all House of Representatives members ahead of 2027, arguing that such moves push aggrieved politicians toward opposition platforms. “Now, these senators you removed, you have no place for them,” Wike said. “Do you prefer them to go to ADC or to go to NDC?”
In Cross River State, a coalition comprising the PDP, Labour Party, Obidient movement and ADC elements has set out to challenge Governor Bassey Otu. In Gombe State, Wike is supporting the governorship candidate of another party, directly challenging the APC’s consensus candidate, Jamilu Gwamna, who was presented to President Tinubu by Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya. Wike is also working with PDP-aligned candidates in Katsina, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa and Taraba states, according to Daily Trust investigations.
The political arithmetic makes the confrontation particularly consequential. Thirty-one of Nigeria’s thirty-six state governors are APC members, and fifteen of them are seeking re-election. Those in their second term are focused on ensuring their preferred successors win. Wike’s coalition directly threatens those ambitions by creating alternative power centres and pulling aggrieved APC politicians into rival camps. Sources close to the President say Tinubu has been briefed that the Rainbow Coalition could fragment his support base and reduce his votes in key states.
Yet Wike maintains that his coalition is precisely what Tinubu needs to win. He argues that by offering a political platform to politicians who might otherwise join anti-Tinubu coalitions, he is protecting the President’s re-election prospects. “Because of our rainbow coalition, we no longer have Rivers of blood,” he said, referring to the political violence that once characterised Rivers State politics. He also pointed to governors of Osun, Anambra and Abia states who support Tinubu’s re-election while their parties field candidates in other elections, asking where the confusion lies.
The standoff between Wike and the APC governors has exposed a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Tinubu’s re-election strategy. The President needs Wike’s political skills and cross-party networks, particularly in the South-South and North-Central, but he also needs the unified support of his party’s governors and their state machines. Wike has built a coalition that serves the first purpose but undermines the second. The APC governors have drawn a line: no parallel structures, no divided loyalty, no non-APC candidates. Wike has drawn his own: he is not answerable to governors, and his support for Tinubu is sacrosanct. Between these two positions lies the unresolved question of who controls the political machinery for 2027. The answer will determine not just Tinubu’s fate, but the future of the APC itself.
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