By Alabi Williams
President Tinubu has again intervened in the troubled Rivers political space. This time, he is reported to have declared FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, the undisputed leader of Rivers politics, regardless of party affiliations.
That’s close to Wike’s recent rainbow coalition coinage.
Sounds strange. Party politics is defined by distinct political interests, sometimes ideologies. The reason there are affiliations is to give the people choices. The rainbow coalition that has been introduced by Wike, now endorsed by President Tinubu, is a way to justify Wike’s membership of two or more political parties. Such can only yield short-terms gains for its purveyors. In the long run, it will ruin voters’ ability to sensibly distinguish between inducement and free will. It is a harbinger of more political confusion.
While the President was away in Europe for his New Year holiday and later in the UAE, for the 2026 edition of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week Summit, both Wike and Fubara entered a contest to prove who is more loyal to President Tinubu. Wike went on a tour of Rivers local government areas, to thank the people for giving Tinubu 231,591 votes in the 2023 presidential election.
That election was keenly contested between the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi and Tinubu. Initial results from 21 out of the 23 councils, had Obi in the lead with 169,414 votes, against Tinubu’s 148,979 votes. It was the results from the remaining two area councils Obi-Akpor and Degema that changed the tide. Tinubu scored 80,239 in Obi-Akpor while Obi polled 3,829. In Degema, Tinubu scored 2,375 votes, while Obi scored 2,212 votes.
For reference, the collated results in Obi-Akpo were disputed by foreign and local observers. The cancellations and mutilation of the EC8A forms were an embarrassment to the Electoral Commission. But the election tribunals overlooked them all. Tinubu didn’t forget the efforts, which Wike claimed he single-handedly delivered.
In the thank-you-tour, Wike used the opportunity to remind his audience that 2027 is coming. In his usual tantrums, he warned those who thought they could displace him as the champion of Rivers politics not to even try it.
On his part, Fubara had gone ahead of Wike to be conscripted into the APC. He exuberantly flaunted his party registration number 001, to announce his undiluted love and support for Tinubu. He even poked a jab at Wike’s corner corner love for the President. That incensed the godfather more, and his lawmakers in the Rivers Assembly went to work with impeachment threats.
In attempts to solidarise with Fubara against Wike’s meddlesomeness, APC chieftains visited Port Harcourt, for road shows and projects commissioning. Their combined efforts boosted Fubara’s confidence but sent the unpleasant message to Wike that Fubara had joined their party and they were going to protect him.
The National Secretary of the party, Ajibola Basiru, used the occasion to remind Wike to restrict his destructive capacities to his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and not to export it to the APC, where Fubara is nesting.
Wike got infuriated and fired back at Ajibola and the APC establishment, including Tinubu. He warned that he could not be used and dumped, apparently referring to the 2023 presidential election. He told APC leaders that their interest is in Rivers’ billions of naira. They should stay away.
Ajibola Basiru was compelled to do a public disclaimer, challenging Wike to resign his appointment as FCT Minister and return home to nurse his obsession with Rivers politics. That was the first open rebuke of Wike’s anti-party activities by a notable figure in the ruling party. Basiru noted that all members of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) must accord sitting governors due respect and recognise them as leaders of the party in their states. That is the convention.
At that point, observers thought Wike might be close to his waterloo. Perhaps, the APC had had enough of his toxic politics. Wike seemed to suffer momentary humiliation, but he wasn’t done. Let the President return from his holiday, whether he would support that Wike be humiliated and traduced.
According to the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, Wike had offered to dismantle the PDP to make 2027 far easier than 2023 for Tinubu. Towards 2023 elections, Tinubu saw an opening in the wall of PDP, which Wike had created to destabilise the party. Candidate Tinubu explored the opportunity and courted Wike as an ally. In the 2023 poll, Abubakar Atiku, candidate of the PDP scored 88,468 votes. Until then, Rivers was 100 per cent PDP.
Wike was rewarded with a ministerial job, with the lavish condition that under him, FCT revenues were no longer to pass through the Treasury Single Account (TSA). The President had thus empowered Wike to do and undo.
But the real point is that under Tinubu, Wike can do no wrong. The President is willing to sacrifice an age-long convention that recognises president and governors as leaders of political parties, just to accommodate Wike’s excesses. President Tinubu has ridiculed Governor Fubara severally, just to empower Wike.
Wike is not a member of the APC and should not be assisted to disrespect the party leadership from outside. Wike has just rubbished the APC leadership. Even Ajibola Baisru, who did the right thing to put Wike where he rightly belonged, now says Wike is being actively engaged in ongoing efforts to resolve the political crisis in Rivers State, despite not being a registered member of the ruling party.
He 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.”
To be clear, President Tinubu did not form a government of national unity. What he has put in place is closer to a government of national disunity, where Wike and characters like him have been propped up with federal power to dismantle the opposition.
As far as the President is concerned, there is no depth of political absurdity that is too murky for him to descend, including dismantling political authority and robbing the people of Rivers their dignity and peace. In the contest to seduce the President, both Wike and Fubara have enslaved themselves to invest billions of naira in Tinubu’s 2027 re-election project. At the end of the day, it is Rivers people that are extorted.
One of the President’s spokesmen with capacity to entrap, Daniel Bwala, made a critical point on a television chat, that Wike had been amply rewarded for assisting candidate Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election. He alluded that any average person could do what Wike is doing in FCT, with the latitude he has, including having FCT revenues not vetted through the TSA. Bwala meant that there was nothing special Wike did in 2023 that Governor Fubara, as leader of the party cannot deliver transparently in 2027.
Bwala’s remarks were made when the President had not crowned Wike the undisputed leader of Rivers politics. Now that Tinubu has intervened, perhaps, Bwala will also take down his well-put assessment of Wike, and skillfully too.
Even the national Chairman of APC, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, has lost his coherence as far as Wike matter is concerned. At other times, he had correctly stated that governors are the leaders of parties in their states. His latest position is that APC leadership has no mandate to intervene in the dispute between Fubara and Wike, because the two belong to different political parties.
He said: “when it comes to the issue between Wike and Fubara, it is not within my purview as national chairman of the APC. Wike is in the PDP, while Fubara is in the APC.” Everybody knows that. But where are the people of honour and courage to tell President Tinubu that his romance with Wike is endangering multi-party democracy?
In the history of party politics in the country, similar unfettered access to federal power to subdue the regions have recorded unpleasant consequences for both belligerent and non-belligerent. They were both swept away by the fury of alternative power, in the first and second republics. Let’s be careful.
The pact between Wike and Tinubu seems forged in heaven. It is impregnable to probe by common sense and convention. But no matter how rewarding it is to the two of them and supporters, it is harmful to building party discipline and cohesion. It has no respect for the rule of law. It threatens the foundation of democracy.
The Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal’s present dilemma captures the precarious state of what used to be the largest opposition since 2015, the PDP. Lawal is a first-time governor and desires a platform to facilitate a second term. But the PDP that gave him the initial ticket is in total disarray, courtesy Wike and enablers. Lawal has the option of a short-cut out of his troubles, by crossing over to the ruling party, which his colleagues in Delta, Akwa Ibom, Taraba, Plateau, Rivers and others have done, or are planning to do, without remorse or sense of shame.
But hear what Lawal is saying: “I will remain in PDP till the last day, and if I realise there is no PDP, which means there’s no platform for me to contest, I will run as an independent candidate if there is a provision for independent candidate in Nigeria.” Pathetic, yet commendable.
The goal is to shred the PDP. The court has nullified the national convention of the party, which held in Oyo on November 15. Wike and his camp called it Amala convention and vowed it will not stand. They have fixed their own factional convention for March 28, 2026.
If that stands, there will be no distinct PDP in the 2027 elections. There will be APCPDP, which Wike has christened his rainbow coalition. Heavens may not fall. But multi-party democracy will be dented. In that process, many prospective voters will be confused, induced and short-changed.
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