President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been urged to resist moves by some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to make him break the “strategic alliance” existing between him and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
A chieftain of APC, Mr. Osita Okechukwu gave the advice in a chat with journalists in Enugu, saying that Mr. President should not listen to anybody advising him to alienate himself from the FCT Minister.
He was reacting to perceived misgivings being expressed by APC governors over Wike’s “Rainbow Coalition” and his relationship with Tinubu, which they consider as too close for their own comfort hence their move to break the umbilical cord linking the FCT Minister with Tinubu.
Wike, who is officially a member of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) has been supporting President Tinubu since 2023 when he was the governor of Rivers State. He later got an important cabinet position in the APC-controlled federal government, thereby putting one foot in the opposition party and another foot in the ruling party.
But Okechukwu insisted that President Tinubu should allow the strategic alliance with Wike to stand, adding that he was making the appeal “based on the political significance and strategic value of Wike’s alliance”.
According to him, Wike contributed to Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 presidential election and could again add considerable value in the 2027 contest.
Okechukwu, who is a founding member of APC, noted that the political realignment forged with Wike “has already weakened the influence of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar nationwide, more so as “the PDP presidential candidate is truly a ‘placeholder’ posing no danger”.
He said Wike, who is presently not a card-carring member of APC, has more electoral value for the ruling party compared to some APC governors.
Okechukwu further argued that, from his own own political analysis, “Wike could ultimately deliver more votes to President Tinubu than some of the APC governors who are currently seeking to distance themselves from him”.
He stated that some of the governors who are now raising the alarm over Wike’s relationship with Mr. President “should first examine their own conduct during the APC’s gubernatorial and legislative primaries”.
“Some of those who are crying wolf today should remember that the electorate has not forgotten how our great party’s gubernatorial and legislative primaries were conducted in their respective states.
“Where primaries were manipulated, the consequences may eventually come back to haunt the perpetrators,” the party chieftain said.
Okechukwu said he was particularly encouraged that there would be pay back time for APC governors the that scuttled internal democracy suring the primaries. He said that the vulnerabilities of the governors would be exposed by the three weeks gap between between the presidential election scheduled for January 16, 2027, and the gubernatorial election scheduled for February 6, 2027.
According to him, “the interval is an opportunity for Nigerian voters to assess the performance of both the Federal Government and the State Governments, especially against the backdrop of the increased financial allocations accruing to the states”.
“My happiness is that there is a gap of three good weeks between presidential election and gubernatorial election. This gives the Nigerian electorate an opportunity to assess who has delivered commensurate dividends of democracy from the increased resources available to the states,” Okechukwu stated.
He asserted that the 2027 general election could therefore “serve as a referendum on performance, distinguishing political leaders who have translated increased public resources into tangible improvements in the lives of their citizens from those who have not”.
