Battle Over ‘Rainbow Coalition’ Pits APC Govs Against Wike, as Camps Plot 2027 Election Strategy for Tinubu, Others

…Uzodimma: No parallel structures, no support for non-APC candidates

…Wike fires back: ‘Rainbow Coalition is about Tinubu, not state politics’

By Peter Salami
A potentially bruising political battle has erupted between governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike over the emerging “Rainbow Coalition” for the 2027 elections, even as both sides insist that their overriding objective remains the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

At the centre of the dispute is a fundamental disagreement over how far the cross-party coalition being promoted by Wike can go without hurting APC candidates who will appear on the same ballot with the President.

The Progressive Governors Forum, PGF, on Monday night drew a red line, declaring that APC governors would neither support candidates of other political parties nor participate in political arrangements capable of weakening the ruling party or creating competing campaign structures.

But Wike fired back on Tuesday, insisting that the governors had misunderstood the purpose of his coalition.

The former Rivers State governor said the Rainbow Coalition was never designed as an APC structure and was not intended to guarantee the election of APC governors, senators, or lawmakers.
His commitment, he declared, is specifically to Tinubu.

“Rainbow Coalition has nothing to do with the APC,” Wike said in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka.

According to him, it is instead a vehicle for mobilising politicians across party lines who support Tinubu’s re-election.

The increasingly public disagreement followed a closed-door meeting of APC governors at the Imo State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja, where PGF Chairman and Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma announced that the governors would campaign exclusively for candidates sponsored by their party.

“The APC Governors Forum unanimously resolved that its members will not participate in, support or endorse any alliance or political arrangement capable of undermining the re-election of Mr President, weakening the APC or adversely affecting any candidate of the party at all levels,” Uzodimma said.

He added that the governors had “no intention to support any candidate at any level that is not an APC candidate,” stressing that the entire campaign architecture of the governors would be aligned with Tinubu and the strategic objectives of the ruling party.

The declaration was widely interpreted as a response to Wike’s Rainbow Coalition, whose cross-party character has generated concerns among some APC interests that voters — particularly at the grassroots — could be asked to support Tinubu for President while voting against APC candidates in governorship, National Assembly and state assembly elections.
That is precisely the political arrangement Wike says is possible.

The FCT minister made clear that his support for Tinubu should not be mistaken for a commitment to deliver blanket APC victories across the country.

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

Wike also declared that he had never promised that his Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, would stay out of governorship, National Assembly, or state assembly contests in 2027.

“What I said and stand for is that I will mobilise support for the re-election of the President. I never promised anyone that PDP will not field candidates to contest governorship, National Assembly, and State House of Assembly elections,” he said.

For the APC governors, Tinubu’s re-election and the fortunes of the ruling party’s candidates are components of the same electoral project. For Wike, however, support for Tinubu can coexist with fierce competition against APC candidates further down the ballot.

Wike invoked the 2023 elections to challenge concerns that such an arrangement could confuse voters.

Turning directly to Uzodimma’s Imo State, the minister questioned how the APC won two Senate seats there in 2023 even though Tinubu secured less than 15 per cent of the state’s presidential vote.

“Was it Rainbow Coalition? Were the voters confused?” he asked.

He similarly pointed to APC National Assembly victories in Ebonyi, Abia, and Enugu despite the party’s comparatively poor presidential showing in parts of the South-East, arguing that voters were perfectly capable of choosing different parties for different offices.

The exchanges have added another layer to the political friction between Wike and Uzodimma, whom the FCT minister had previously accused of being behind attacks against him.

But beneath the increasingly sharp rhetoric is one significant area of agreement: neither side is challenging Tinubu’s re-election project.
Indeed, both camps are presenting their competing strategies as the better way to maximise the President’s support in 2027.

The governors say a disciplined APC structure, without competing alliances or divided loyalties, offers the clearest route to mobilising the party’s machinery behind the President and its candidates.

Wike’s proposition is different: Tinubu’s support base, he argues, can extend well beyond the APC by bringing together politicians and voters who may remain loyal to their own parties in local contests while backing the President nationally.

He pointed to his own role and that of the PDP’s G5 governors in the 2023 election, saying they backed Tinubu without first reaching an agreement with the APC. For 2027, he said, the principle remains the same.

The minister consequently urged political actors to concentrate first on returning Tinubu before fighting their respective local battles.

“After the President must have been re-elected, we can all go and face elections in our states,” Wike said.