FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike has hit back at Imo Governor, Hope Uzodimma after APC governors rejected the ‘Rainbow Coalition’, insisting the alliance is aimed at mobilising support for President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election and not undermining the APC.
The APC Governors Forum, chaired by Uzodimma, unanimously resolved that its members would neither participate in, support nor endorse any alliance or political arrangement capable of undermining Tinubu’s re-election, weakening the APC or adversely affecting the party’s candidates at any level. Uzodimma, who also serves as Secretary of the Tinubu Campaign Council, said the governors had no intention of supporting candidates who were not contesting on the APC platform.
“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 the President, weakening the APC or adversely affecting any candidate of the party at all levels,” Uzodimma said, adding that the governors’ campaign commitment would be exclusively to APC candidates and aligned with Tinubu’s agenda.
Wike, however, said the Rainbow Coalition had no connection with the APC and was simply an arrangement through which politicians from different parties could mobilise support for Tinubu. In a statement issued on Tuesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka, the minister said his support for Tinubu should not be interpreted as an endorsement of APC candidates in governorship, senatorial or other elections.
Wike questioned Uzodimma over the 2023 presidential voting pattern in Imo, noting that APC candidates won two Senate seats even though Tinubu secured less than 15 per cent of the presidential votes in the state. He also cited Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi, where APC candidates won National Assembly seats despite Tinubu recording less than 10 per cent of the votes in some of the states, asking whether those outcomes resulted from a Rainbow Coalition or voters making different choices in separate elections.
The minister said he never promised that the Peoples Democratic Party would not field candidates for the 2027 governorship, National Assembly and State House of Assembly elections, stressing that his commitment was to mobilise support for Tinubu’s return as president. He urged politicians facing challenges in their states to resolve them locally rather than use the president’s re-election campaign to settle political disputes, maintaining that the Rainbow Coalition was designed to mobilise support for Tinubu and not to help politicians secure victory in other elections.
