Nigerian politics has an enduring habit of laundering naked ambition through the respectable vocabulary of strategy, alliances, and national interest. Yet, from time to time, the veil slips, exposing the crude impulses that animate the political class. The simmering drama involving the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, is one such moment of unguarded clarity. It is a story less about ideology and more about ego, excess confidence, and the perennial danger of confusing access to power with ownership of it.
It was widely reported—and significantly never rebutted—that Wike and Uzodimma ended up on opposite sides of a deepening political rift. According to these accounts, Wike allegedly worked behind the scenes to persuade influential persons within the APC to position Samuel Anyanwu, the PDP National Secretary, as a governorship option in Imo State, framed as compensation for his role in hollowing out the opposition PDP from within. In Nigerian politics, silence in the face of such weighty claims often functions as a tacit confirmation.
What gives these reports their unsettling credibility is not merely their circulation but the conspicuous absence of denial. No press conference, no media aides issuing angry rebuttals, no threats of litigation. The allegations were allowed to linger, thick with meaning. They projected the image of a federal minister intoxicated by proximity to power and lulled into believing that influence is the same thing as omnipotence.
Uzodimma, however, is not a politician given to stoic submission. Soon enough, counter-reports emerged suggesting that he responded by nudging Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, toward the APC. If this account is accurate, it was less about Rivers State and more about sending a blunt message to Wike: political adventurism has consequences.
This was retaliation as instruction. Uzodimma’s alleged move was designed to punish what he saw as an unforgivable intrusion—an attempt to dictate the political future of Imo State by imposing Samuel Anyanwu as APC governorship candidate. In the unwritten etiquette of Nigerian power politics, one does not casually trespass into another man’s territorial stronghold and expect no pushback.
If these narratives hold, Uzodimma was simply reminding Wike of an old political truth. There are spaces even the powerful must approach with caution. Imo appears to be one of Uzodimma’s red lines. Wike’s intervention, therefore, reads less like strategic audacity and more like hubris—a misreading of his own reach.
The episode also raises uncomfortable questions about political depth and restraint. That Wike reportedly influenced ambassadorial postings for former governors Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State and T. A. Orji of Abia State does not automatically grant him a roving license to meddle recklessly across state boundaries. Influence in Nigerian politics is situational, not universal.
Uzodimma, by contrast, has steadily cultivated the image of a political blade—quiet, sharp, and decisive when tested. His relationship with President Bola Tinubu and his prominence among APC governors have been marked by calculation and discipline, virtues often missing from Wike’s theatrically combative style.
Power in Abuja is a potent intoxicant, and Wike appears to have mistaken proximity for permanence. The same political alchemy that once amplified his relevance in Tinubu’s orbit is already losing its potency. Nigerian politics is notoriously unforgiving to those who confuse temporary favour with enduring authority.
The reported realignment of Siminalayi Fubara only accentuates this shifting balance. Fubara, long portrayed as Wike’s political creation, seems to have read the signs of the times with greater acuity than his benefactor. In the harsh arithmetic of Nigerian politics, few humiliations cut deeper than being outpaced by one’s own protégé.
Increasingly, Wike risks political solitude. His belligerent style, once hailed as fearless, now comes across as anxious—a noisy insistence on relevance in a political order that is quietly reorganizing without him at its center.
This unfolding drama inevitably feeds into the succession question in Imo State. Judging by Uzodimma’s trajectory, it is hard to imagine him repeating the costly mistake of former Imo governors who failed to manage succession and paid dearly for it.
Still, certainty would be misplaced. Uzodimma’s politics thrives on unpredictability. Those assuming that the Owerri zone will automatically benefit from any succession arrangement may be mistaking wishful thinking for political strategy.
Uzodimma has repeatedly demonstrated a capacity for political acrobatics that defy zoning sentiment and conventional wisdom. He plays chess in a political environment dominated by draughts, and he rarely telegraphs his moves until the outcome is already inevitable.
What we are witnessing, in the final analysis, is the hand of Esau at work in Imo politics—muscular, assertive, and unapologetically ambitious. But the biblical metaphor also carries a warning. Brute force without prudence often loses to quiet calculation. Between Wike’s overreach and Uzodimma’s cold precision lies a sobering lesson. In Nigerian politics, power is not sustained by noise or bravado, but by patience, restraint, and a keen understanding of political limits
