By Clifford Ndujihe, Demola Akinyemi, Juilet Umeh, Dan Abia & Emma Una
Powerful blocs in the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, are up in gloves against the Rainbow Coalition midwifed by Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, Minister, Nyesom Wike, saying it would not only hurt the party’s candidates in the 2027 polls but also the re-election of President Bola Tinubu.
Wike, a kingmaker in the camp of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, insists that the Rainbow Coalition is 100 per cent for Tinubu, countering that his political traduces were against him because of his support for the president.
However, his opponents countered that by the Coalition’s fielding of candidates from various parties, many voters especially in the rural areas would be confused on election day and the move could reduce Tinubu’s vote tally in what is panning out as a hot presidential balloting.
Already, the issue is raising dust in many states such as Rivers, Kwara, Gombe and Cross River.
Speaking during a media chat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, last week, Wike said that Imo State Governor and Chairman of Progressives Governors Forum, Senator Hope Uzodimma; and Kwara State Governor and Chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, were in the forefront of a campaign against him.
“Take for example, Kwara, he has been the one championing this campaign against me everywhere. Yes, I have confronted him too. I don’t talk about what I cannot defend,” he said.
According to him, the Kwara governor accused him of sponsoring candidates against his preferred choices in the state.
He added that the governor ought to be grateful to him for offering a platform to aggrieved APC bigwigs who ditched the party for his PDP rather than going to pitch tent with anti-Bola Tinubu coalition.
The minister also referenced a strained relationship with the Imo State governor, recalling that the governor once declined to support him, despite the support he gave him.
Wike insisted that despite these grievances, his focus remains on delivering President Tinubu’s re-election, adding that he would not allow personal disputes with the governors to distract him from that goal.
The minister maintained that he had never concealed his political intentions and challenged those alleging he was working against the interests of the ruling APC, and governors to state clearly what support they had extended to him in his own political battles.
Why we’re against Rainbow Coalition
Contacted on the issue, a top source close to the APC governors said Wike’s National Rainbow Coalition could create confusion among the electorate, and reduce the votes of President Tinubu.
Sources close to Tinubu however, said the President had been informed that the National Rainbow Coalition might affect his votes in the forthcoming general elections across the states.
Sources said these concerns were expressed by the governors at a recent meeting in Abuja.
The Wike-led coalition has fielded candidates in the PDP for National Assembly elections which come up on the same date as the presidential election in 2027.
They said the arrangement might fragment the vote strength of President Tinubu of the APC, who the coalition claimed to support.
Members of the rainbow coalition, who are desperate about their personal ambitions, were said to be merely using the president’s name in the public, while secretly promoting their candidacy in their different communities.
The joker, it was learned from sources closer to the strategic and nocturnal meetings, is to instruct their followers secretly to ditch anything APC during the election and vote for the PDP from top to bottom.
This development, Saturday Vanguard gathered is causing concern within the ranks of the APC governors as some said they won’t buy an idea which, according to them, will affect the President and APC’s National Assembly candidates.
They argued that majority of the voting public had not attained that level of political enlightenment to make proper discernment between different political parties. Political records show that people vote in a singular direction in most cases.
They said the coalition would not be able to handle the old, rural and illiterate voters. Example can be seen in the case of Oyo State in the 2023 election where in an attempt to support the presidential bid of candidate Tinubu of the APC, the PDP which was the ruling party at the state level lost the National Assembly seats.
A similar scenario played out in the South-West in 2003 when in a bid to support the re-election bid of PDP’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, the then ruling Alliance for Democracy, AD, lost five governorship and most National Assembly seats in the zone.
Ironically, the only survivor was Senator Bola Tinubu, who was Lagos State governor and his National Assembly candidates.
Now, the sources continued, the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who is one of Tinubu’s fiercest challengers, has been unrelenting in promoting his aspirations, emphasising that the electorate should vote for his party. Atiku is positioning himself to harvest full votes from North-East and North-West.
“This will hurt Tinubu badly, if he does not get maximum votes from North-Central and South-East,” the source added.
Bukola Saraki, Abdulrazak’s rival, has teamed up with Wike in Kwara and this could hurt the APC in the state. People can’t reconcile how the Rainbow Coalition would be making case for President Tinubu on one hand and be fighting the APC on the other. However, the rainbow coalition is not a Kwara issue. They have candidates in Gombe, Cross River, Zamfara, Kwara, and other states.
In Cross River, a similar coalition, comprising PDP, Labour-Obidient, ADC elements, has also set out to challenge the incumbent governor, Bassey Otu.
Sources said the governors want the party leadership to step in to avoid what could perhaps be the biggest sabotage in the history of the country, saying “the rainbow coalition poses more dangers to the president’s re-election and needs to be addressed urgently.”
