The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, is not known to be on the ballot for the 2027 general elections. He did not indicate interest to vie for any particular elective position. He rather operates a loose coalition of parties that is not known to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Yet, his formula appears too potent to be ignored.

Why? Because he had put it to use in 2023, and it worked in Rivers State, where Wike used it to award Bola Ahmed Tinubu significant votes. He even promised to deliver more in 2027. President Tinubu seems to be at home with Wike’s recipe, but the All Progressives Congress (APC), and their governors are now wary of Wike’s coalition. Some are scared.

Last week, the APC governors summoned courage to express their fears. Through the Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum and Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, they launched a veiled attack on Wike’s coalition, warning that they would not support any alliance or political arrangement that has capacity to undermine the re-election of President Tinubu or weaken the party in the 2027 elections.

They pledged their loyalty and commitment to delivering only APC candidates at all levels.

Whereas Wike was hired by Tinubu to win elections for him, the governors are concerned that the incongruity of a rainbow arrangement might confuse voters on election day. The APC governors therefore rejected Wike’s offer to help President Tinubu because it posed a serious risk to their survival.

Of the party’s 31 governor, 16 of them are said to be seeking re-election. Those who are doing their second term prefer to have candidates of their choice elected as successors. Others want to go to the National Assembly.

Even though there was no direct mention of Wike in the governor’s presentation, the FCT minister wasted no time to reply them. He referred to the APC governors 419ners and politically lazy bunch that cannot win elections on their own.

Observers are wondering how matters have degenerated so roughly between Wike and APC? It had been under wraps, with the governors suffering in silence and plotting an auspicious opportunity to cry out. The absence of President Tinubu apparently presented the opportunity.

The earlier pushback
This is not the first attempt by governors of the APC and the party hierarchy to resist Wike’s informal incursion into their party. Even though Wike does not participate in the activities of the party, the Presidency allows him to interfere in ways that render the party helpless. When Wike was hellbent on denying Governor Siminalayi Fubara opportunity to pick APC forms to indicate interest in the primary for a second term, the APC governors thought it was their responsibility to rescue one of their own.

At the time, Fubara had been coerced to officially join the APC, which he did on December 9, 2025.

Everyone thought that was the condition Fubara needed to be in the good books of Wike. After all, the major contention between Fubara and Wike loyalists in the Rivers House of Assembly was his refusal to accompany them to the APC. But the godfather refused to be appeased.

So, the governors, led by Uzodimma and other party leaders had gone on a solidarity visit to Fubara, to boost his chances. They went on a road show, commissioned projects and assured the troubled governor that since he was now part of them, he deserved to compete and be the candidate of the party.

They made attempts to crown him the leader of the party in the state, which is the convention, that governors are leaders of parties in their respective states. To the extent that Fubara infantilely advertised his APC registration card number 001.

On that occasion, Wike got furious. He alleged that the governors had gone to collect money from Fubara and rained curses on the governors and party leadership for their effort to set up Fubara against him. He warned the APC that they could not use and dump him.

Infuriated, the national Secretary of the party, Ajibola Basiru, in a blunt disclaimer told Wike to restrict his disruptive politics to PDP. He told him to resign as FCT Minister and return to Rivers to ply his rainbow confusion. Basiru stressed that the party needed to recognise Fubara as the leader of the APC in Rivers and accord him due recognition and powers.

But when President Tinubu who had been away on a 23-day working holiday to Paris-Abu Dhabi-Turkey (December 28, 2025 to January 17, 2026) returned, he crowned Wike the undisputable leader of APCPDP in Rivers. Fubara was abandoned, and the APC governors thrown under the bus. Unfortunately, no one could look the President in the eye. Even the party leadership began to speak in tongues.

Basiru, who had earlier told Wike to go to hell with his destructive politics changed his mind. He now said: “Of course, as you know, Wike is an avowed supporter of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, even though not a member of the political party. Rivers State is critical to the success of President Tinubu, and definitely, he will be engaged. He has been engaged in an amicable resolution in the state as expected.”

That episode was presented on this Backpage in a piece titled: 2027 and Wike’s rainbow coalition. That was the time Wike’s rainbow coalition got the President’s backing. It was not that the APC governors did not make effort to restrain Wike, they did. Just that they lacked the courage to so. They only act when President Tinubu is out of the country. There used to be a time when governors decided the fate of their party and the sitting president.

The 1999 Constitution has provided sufficient operational legroom for governors to do their thing independent of a meddlesome president. All they needed is to work for the people and live above board.

But a lot of them have skeletons in their cupboards at home and away. They become toy items for Aso Rock to play with.

Perhaps, the governors saw trouble ahead. Now, some of them are struggling to save themselves. President Tinubu has handed to Wike enormous powers to operate across parties. In the FCT Council election of February 2026, Wike operated his coalition freely. He gave APC five councils and gave one to PDP/APC.

Nobody in the ruling party raised objection because it favoured them. Now that Wike has appointed vassals from his faction of PDP to compete in 2027, there is trouble in states.

Wike has distributed tickets of his PDP faction to contestants who were denied tickets in APC-controlled states. For instance, in Kwara State, where Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRzaq is not on the same page with the National Assembly lawmakers, whom he allegedly undermined and denied tickets in the primaries, Wike has generously offered PDP tickets to some.

He boasted that he has given them tickets to run under the PDP but support Tinubu in the presidential election. Wike has similarly planted candidates in other states including Katsina, Benue, Plateau, Rivers, Nasarawa, Gombe and Taraba.

In his response, Wike made it clear that he had no business with the APC governors. He said his support is only for President Tinubu and that he never promised anyone that the PDP will not field candidates in the governorship, National Assembly and State House of Assembly elections.

Wike said: “I won’t be the one to help people win elections in their states. Politics is local. Those having problems in their states should resolve them instead of using the President’s re-election to whip up sentiments.”

Wike made some sense. Together with the G-5 governors, they made a deal to support Tinubu in 2023, against their party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. It paid off handsomely for Wike, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, former governors of Abia and Enugu.

That did not mean they were abandoning PDP. Wike did not seek to join APC and Tinubu is aware. He argues that his coalition worked in Rivers in 2023. He wants to make it work for Tinubu in 2027. In the process, the coalition will field candidates except for the presidency.

Wike said those who are not comfortable with his coalition are governors who have not put their houses in order. Maybe he’s right. In Imo State, Hope Uzodimma is said to have tricks up his sleeves. He wants to go to the Senate, whereas his second term is scheduled to end on January 14, 2028. How the Electoral Act and INEC managed to accommodate that duplicity remains a puzzle. It is not possible to be a senator and governor at the same time.

It is likely that Uzodimma’s scheming does not allow him a firm hold of the party and allies in his state. Wike and others are looking for electoral opportunities to harvest in Imo and other states where the governors are neither here nor there. They’re more or less waiting to jump on President Tinubu’s bandwagon.

Wike’s argument that some APC governors are trying to establish a basis to blame his coalition when they fail to deliver their states for Tinubu in 2027 has logic. The ground for his position is here in his posers: “In Imo State under Governor Hope Uzodimma, how did the APC win two Senate seats in 2023 in an election held the same day as presidential election, when the APC has less than 15 per cent in the presidential election? Was it a rainbow coalition or the voters were confused?

Wike again asked: “Was it a rainbow coalition that also made the APC win National Assembly seats in Ebonyi, Abia and Enugu States, where the President did not get up to 10 per cent of the votes?”

The two sides are waiting for President Tinubu to return from holiday. It is too late for him to deny Wike. It is also not tact to again throw his party and governors under the bus. He needs them.

Those who blame Wike solely for the mess miss the fundamental point. Tinubu takes the larger blame for endorsing a coalition of confusion!