The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has staked his continued stay in the Federal Executive Council on President Bola Tinubu winning the 2027 presidential election in both Rivers State and the FCT.
“If President Tinubu loses FCT, Rivers, I will resign as minister,” Wike declared in Abuja on Wednesday.
Wike made the declaration while meeting members of the Apo Traders Association in Abuja, where he said he could not afford to lose the two territories that have become central to his political activities.
The FCT Minister said while Rivers remained his home state, Abuja was the place where he currently worked, making victory for Tinubu in both locations particularly important to him.
He said he would take personal responsibility for the outcome of the election in Rivers and the FCT by resigning his ministerial appointment if Tinubu failed to win either Rivers or the FCT.
“The presidential election is on January 16, 2027. By January 17, 2027, I will announce my resignation as FCT Minister should the President lose in Rivers State and the FCT,” Wike said.
The declaration comes against the backdrop of the minister’s increasingly public political mobilisation for Tinubu’s re-election through the “Rainbow Coalition.”
According to him, the cross-party platform is focused on securing the President’s second term rather than supporting the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates in other state and federal elections.
Activities of the minister’s coalition have brought him into a running political battle with APC governors, particularly the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), which has insisted that APC governors will support Tinubu as well as APC candidates at the various levels of the 2027 elections.
The PGF, led by Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma, had rejected the minister’s political arrangements, saying it’s capable of weakening the APC or its candidates.
Wike, however, has maintained that supporting Tinubu does not require members of the coalition to support APC candidates in governorship and legislative contests.
The former Rivers governor has also argued that the experience of the G-5 governors in 2023 demonstrated that politicians could support a presidential candidate from another party while retaining their allegiance to their own parties in other elections.
Wike has repeatedly insisted that the Rainbow Coalition is specifically designed to mobilise votes for Tinubu across party lines and has no formal affiliation with the APC.
“The coalition is a platform for other political parties that are pleased with the good works of Tinubu and are supporting his re-election. It has nothing to do with APC,” he had said.
The minister’s latest declaration effectively puts Rivers and the FCT at the centre of his own political mobilisation, with the two territories becoming a personal test of the strength of the coalition he is championing.
Wike has previously expressed confidence that Tinubu would win the FCT, while also pointing to political realignments in Rivers and other states as evidence of the coalition’s reach.
His declaration is also likely to further sharpen the political contest between him and the APC governors, who have questioned the wisdom of a cross-party structure operating alongside the ruling party’s official campaign machinery.
Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal, for instance, recently told Wike that he could not simultaneously support the APC and other political parties, insisting that political actors must make their allegiances clear.
Wike, however, has maintained that he is not answerable to APC governors and that his political objective is to ensure Tinubu’s re-election.
Among the states where candidates of the Wike-backed Rainbow Coalition candidates are posing challenges to APC structures are Kwara, Gombe Imo, Jigawa, Ogun, Ebonyi, Enugu, Anambra and a few others.
