Tinubu Moves to End APC Governors–Wike Coalition Feud

…Campaign Council Says “disagreement” now being tackled at ‘highest level’, will soon end

By Emmanuel Olugua
The power struggle between governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Rainbow Coalition over President Bola Tinubu’s re-election campaign is being resolved at the “highest level” and will soon be put to rest, a spokesman of the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Ima Niboro, has said.

Niboro, who spoke on TVC’s Breakfast programme on Thursday, said the Campaign Council had deliberately decided to take the disagreement off the pages of newspapers and television screens while efforts continued behind the scenes to resolve it.

The dispute centres on tensions between some APC governors and the Rainbow Coalition, associated with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, over the structure and direction of the President’s re-election campaign.

Niboro said allowing the disagreement to dominate public discourse could distract from the campaign’s central objective and insisted that the matter was already receiving attention at a level where a resolution could be reached.

“At the level of the Campaign Council, we have agreed to take these matters off the front pages,” he said.

“I spoke on Arise yesterday, and I said, ‘Go and work and stop talking.’ So, the position of the Campaign Council is that we are taking these matters off the front pages, off the cameras.

“We work as a team, and it is a team decision. The reason is that this matter is being handled at the highest level — the level you cannot go higher than. So, let’s wait for the results. I think Nigerians will be interested in knowing what the final results are.

“This is a disagreement among siblings. So, let’s leave it at that.”

Niboro, a former presidential media adviser and former Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, said the Tinubu campaign would instead concentrate on presenting its record and outlining its plans for the next four years.

According to him, the central campaign theme for the 2027 presidential election is “From Reform to Prosperity.”

“We are on our campaign direction; our thrust for now is from reform to prosperity,” he said.

Niboro said the Tinubu administration had undertaken sweeping economic reforms that required difficult decisions and imposed significant hardship on Nigerians, but argued that the next phase should be about translating those reforms into improved living standards.

He urged voters to judge candidates on “firm and verifiable track records” rather than campaign promises.

“The most important thing I will say is that in the election before us, we should vote based on firm and verifiable track records. We should not listen to people who will take us back with promises — empty promises,” he said.

“The President has established a very clear platform for development and growth. Let nobody come and take Nigeria back another 50 years.”

Niboro cited the administration’s infrastructure programme, including the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway, as examples of projects the campaign intends to place before voters.

He argued that improved road infrastructure could have wider economic effects, particularly on agriculture, by making it easier to move food from producing areas to markets and reducing transportation bottlenecks.

“The entire country is being linked with superhighways, and this will have a positive effect on food because part of the problems we have in agriculture in Nigeria is storage and transportation,” he said.

“With this lift, food will move easily.”

Asked whether the APC campaign would avoid religious and ethnic rhetoric as political temperatures rise ahead of 2027, Niboro said the Campaign Council intended to fight the election on issues, facts, and the administration’s record.

“We will come with facts, we will come with figures, and tell Nigerians: don’t listen to promises that people are making. This is fact, this is where we are, and this is where we are going,” he said.

“We have no time for religion- based campaigns; we have no time for ethnicity. We will win the election based on a proven track record of achievements. That is our direction in the Campaign Council.”