2027: How Wike is taking out an APC insurance policy

Kingsley Chinda’s defection to the All Progressives Congress was more than another cross-carpeting story.

The lawmaker, widely seen as Nyesom Wike’s preferred governorship candidate in Rivers State, had long been identified with the Peoples Democratic Party. Yet he quietly secured the APC ticket before publicly resigning from the PDP and stepping down as minority leader in the House of Representatives.

In Abuja, Philip Aduda, Wike’s preferred candidate for the Federal Capital Territory Senate seat, has taken the same route, leaving the PDP and emerging as the APC’s candidate.

Together, the moves point to a wider strategy. Wike still calls the PDP home. But several politicians closest to him are no longer relying on the opposition party’s fractured machinery to reach the ballot in 2027. They are taking APC nominations instead.

Taking out political insurance

For Wike, who serves as minister of the Federal Capital Territory in President Bola Tinubu’s APC government, the arrangement offers political insurance. His faction is fighting for control of the PDP against a rival bloc led by Kabiru Tanimu Turaki. Both sides have produced parallel candidates. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) currently recognises the Wike-backed faction, but the Turaki camp is challenging that position. Any adverse ruling could leave candidates produced by the losing structure in legal limbo, while Wike’s APC allies remain on the ballot.

Wike’s camp rejects the interpretation. “Wike is not securing any political future in the APC,” Jungudo Mohammed, spokesman for his PDP faction, tells The Africa Report. “Wike remains in the PDP and will die as a PDP man.”

But the pattern is hard to dismiss. In Rivers, pro-Wike lawmakers defected to the APC last year and have secured tickets for 2027. Chinda’s move gives the ruling party a governorship candidate tied to Wike’s machine. In the FCT, Aduda gives Wike an ally on the APC line.

Speaking at a public event last week, Wike openly praised Aduda’s move. “You know who will win the presidential election and you have gone to attach yourself to that mandate,” he told him. “Congratulations in advance.”

Mohammed says Chinda, Aduda and the lawmakers are adults, free to pursue their ambitions in any party. He also says Wike has not endorsed any governorship candidate in Rivers. Yet Chinda, the most prominent figure in Wike’s loose cross-party coalition, is increasingly seen as the favourite to receive his blessing.

Who does Wike work for?

The defections sharpen the central contradiction of Wike’s politics. He remains one of the most powerful figures in the PDP. His faction claims the party’s leadership and has produced candidates for 2027. Yet he also sits in Tinubu’s cabinet and has repeatedly declared support for the president’s reelection.

That leaves the PDP saying it will challenge Tinubu, even as one of its most influential power brokers works within the APC government.

“This idea of becoming an appendage of the ruling party is something we cannot live with,” Ini Ememobong, spokesman for the Turaki bloc, tells The Africa Report.

Political analyst Temidayo Akinsuyi puts it more bluntly. “In reality, Wike is an APC member,” he says. “He is just claiming to remain in the PDP to weaken the opposition for Tinubu. A serving minister occupying such a juicy cabinet position cannot realistically be working against the ruling party.”

Mohammed rejects that reading. He says Wike’s support for Tinubu is personal and does not bind the PDP. His “national leader” title, he adds, is political, not constitutional.

The contradiction sharpened after the 20 June governorship election in Ekiti State, which the APC won. Hours after the PDP candidate, Wole Oluyede, rejected the result and announced plans to challenge it in court, Wike congratulated Tinubu and the APC.

For Wike’s opponents, Ekiti exposed the party’s deeper problem: its supposed leaders are often absent when the PDP fights the APC and generous when the APC wins.

Ayodele Fayose, the former Ekiti governor and a Wike-aligned PDP figure, made the pattern plainer. While claiming leadership in the state PDP, he openly backed the APC candidate, Governor Biodun Oyebanji, against Oluyede. His son has secured an APC ticket to contest a state legislative seat.

The kingmaker strategy

Wike’s strategy may never be formally acknowledged. It may not need to be. If his faction wins the PDP legal fight, he remains a kingmaker inside Nigeria’s main opposition party. If it loses, many allies will have crossed into the APC and secured nominations there.

That hands Tinubu a dividend. The APC does not need Wike to defect formally. It only needs the PDP to remain divided, legally distracted and unable to act as a coherent opposition.

The court fight will decide who controls the PDP name. Wike’s manoeuvre may decide something larger: whether the party that ruled Nigeria for 16 years can still challenge for national power, or whether some of its strongest machines are already being folded into Tinubu’s reelection architecture.

(The Africa Report)