Major factions within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are pushing back against the National Rainbow Coalition championed by FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, warning that the arrangement could cost President Bola Tinubu critical votes in the 2027 presidential election.

Wike, who remains a registered member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has insisted the coalition exists solely to secure Tinubu's re-election.

However, senior APC figures counter that fielding candidates under different party banners on the same election day would leave many voters, particularly in rural communities, unable to vote in a consistent direction.

APC governors' concerns

Sources close to APC governors said the issue was tabled at a recent meeting in Abuja, where participants warned that coalition members could privately instruct their supporters to vote PDP from top to bottom while publicly claiming allegiance to the president, Vanguard reported.

The concern, the sources said, mirrors what happened in Oyo state during the 2023 elections, when voters who backed Tinubu's presidential bid still sent the state's National Assembly seats to the PDP. A similar pattern played out in the South-West in 2003, when support for President Olusegun Obasanjo's re-election cost the Alliance for Democracy five governorship seats and most of its National Assembly positions across the region.

Arise News Politics Editor Sunna Sambo raised a direct warning on the matter, saying:

"The governors in the APC are already advising President Tinubu to be cautious of this coalition that Nyesom Wike is trying to put because they are afraid that on election day, not many people will be able to decipher between voting for President APC, and then voting for governors PDP, and then maybe voting for some other party. You see that the governors are already having a morbid fear that this coalition that Nyesom Wike is building may actually injure President Tinubu at some point."

Wike, speaking to journalists during a project inspection in Abuja, remained defiant, saying the coalition would grow and that his goal was to make opposition figures including Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi politically uncomfortable, Punch reported.

He also insisted that Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke was firmly in the coalition's camp, telling reporters:

"Adeleke is fully supporting Mr President and so we had to meet last night and encourage ourselves to continue."

Coalition stirs tension across four states

The friction is most visible in Rivers state, where Wike selected Ogundu Kingsley Chinda, a former PDP Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, as the coalition's consensus governorship candidate under the APC platform, despite Wike himself remaining in the PDP. Critics within the coalition argue that a candidate from the upland should not have been chosen while most coalition members come from the riverine areas.

In Kwara, former Senate President Bukola Saraki has aligned with Wike against Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, and Senator Saliu Mustapha has formally resigned from the APC and received the PDP's Kwara Central senatorial ticket.

In Gombe, former Communications Minister Isa Pantami moved to the PDP with coalition backing. In Cross River, a broad opposition grouping is challenging the APC's Governor Bassey Otu.

Wike named Imo Governor Hope Uzodimma and AbdulRazaq as the leading voices against him within APC ranks, claiming both had benefited from his political backing without reciprocating. Despite the internal disputes, he maintained that delivering Tinubu's re-election remained his overriding priority.