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A fresh political confrontation is brewing inside the coalition supporting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 2027 re-election, as FCT Minister Nyesom Wike pushes back against moves by APC governors to reject his cross-party political strategy.
The dispute intensified after governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) resolved that they would support only candidates officially sponsored by their party in the 2027 general elections.
The position was announced by Imo State Governor and Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, Hope Uzodimma, following a closed-door meeting of APC governors in Abuja on Monday night.
Uzodimma said the governors would neither support nor endorse any political arrangement capable of weakening the APC, undermining President Tinubu’s re-election or hurting the chances of APC candidates at other levels.
The declaration is widely seen as a direct challenge to the “Rainbow Coalition” associated with Wike — a political arrangement under which politicians from different parties can support Tinubu for president while backing candidates from their respective parties in governorship and legislative elections.
Wike has argued that supporting Tinubu does not necessarily require politicians to defect to the APC. He has maintained that opposition politicians who work with him can contribute votes to the President while retaining their political identities.
That strategy, however, has increasingly brought him into conflict with APC governors who fear that supporting non-APC candidates below the presidential level could undermine their own party structures.
The tension is particularly significant because Wike has already publicly accused Uzodimma and Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of working against him.
Earlier this month, Wike said Uzodimma was aware of the political support he had previously received from him, while accusing AbdulRazaq of championing a campaign against his political activities.
At the heart of the disagreement is a much bigger question: Who controls the political machinery being assembled to deliver Tinubu in 2027 — the APC governors or Wike’s cross-party network?
Wike’s political history makes the confrontation particularly noteworthy.
In the build-up to the 2023 presidential election, Wike and the G5 governors rebelled against the leadership of their own party, the PDP, after demanding that the party’s national chairmanship should move to the South following Atiku Abubakar’s emergence as presidential candidate.
Wike subsequently refused to support Atiku. He later acknowledged that he supported what he described as “equity, fairness and justice” in the presidential contest, while continuing to support PDP candidates in other elections in Rivers State.
Tinubu eventually won the presidency, while the PDP entered a prolonged period of internal conflict.
That history is why the present disagreement inside the Tinubu coalition deserves attention. But describing Wike as having already “kickstarted APC’s downfall” would be premature. At this stage, what is established is a significant disagreement over electoral strategy, not evidence that the APC itself is collapsing.
Wike has repeatedly insisted that his objective remains Tinubu’s re-election. He has even argued that he does not require a formal position in the APC presidential campaign council to deliver votes for the President.
The APC governors are equally insisting that Tinubu’s presidential campaign cannot be separated from the fortunes of the party’s governorship, National Assembly and state assembly candidates.
That creates the central contradiction heading into 2027:
Can Wike campaign for Tinubu while simultaneously supporting political arrangements that could defeat APC candidates in some states? And can APC governors accept Wike’s help in delivering the President while fighting his allies further down the ballot?
If neither side compromises, what began as a disagreement over a “Rainbow Coalition” could become one of the most consequential internal battles surrounding Tinubu’s 2027 campaign.
