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A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Okoi Obono-Obla, has defended the Rainbow Coalition being championed by Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, while faulting APC governors who have opposed the political arrangement.
Obono-Obla, a legal practitioner and former co-secretary of the inter-party merger committee that facilitated the formation of the APC in 2013, made the remarks during an interview on ARISE News.
He said there was nothing unusual about politicians from different parties working together to support a presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 election.
According to Obono-Obla, Wike’s coalition is intended to mobilise support for President Bola Tinubu across party lines and should not be regarded as problematic simply because some of its members belong to different political parties.
“The coalition Wike is trying to form is not new. So, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the coalition that Wike has put together in Rivers State to support Mr. President,” he said.
“There’s nothing wrong with somebody in the PDP supporting an APC person,” he added, citing political alliances in other countries as examples of cross-party cooperation.
Obono-Obla, however, criticised APC governors who have rejected Wike’s coalition, accusing them of taking control of party structures in their respective states and alienating some members.
“I didn’t expect anything different from the governors, because the governors have hijacked the APC,” he said.
He alleged that some governors had created political cliques around their administrations and imposed candidates on party members, arguing that the situation had contributed to the emergence of Wike’s coalition.
“The APC governors are responsible for the circumstances under which Minister Wike is trying to draw people into his coalition,” Obono-Obla said.
He also argued that supporting Tinubu for president did not prevent a voter from backing another candidate in a governorship election.
“You support Bola Tinubu at the presidential level, and support your party at the governorship level; there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.
Obono-Obla said he supported Tinubu at the presidential level but would not necessarily back APC candidates whom he believed had been imposed on party members without adequate internal democratic processes.
“I have been saying that I support Mr. President, but I will not support some of the APC people who are imposed on us undemocratically,” he said.
The APC chieftain further rejected the argument that Wike’s continued membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while supporting Tinubu was contradictory.
“I am not backing a PDP minister; I am backing Wike’s coalition,” Obono-Obla said.
He pointed to previous instances of cross-party cooperation in Nigeria, including the political arrangement between the National Party of Nigeria and the Nigerian People’s Party during the Second Republic.
Obono-Obla also dismissed suggestions that the PDP had become politically irrelevant, arguing that the party still had candidates in many parts of the country.
“I don’t think the PDP is scattered. If you look at the candidates nominated to INEC, the PDP has candidates in almost all parts of the country,” he said.
He described the emergence of politicians who remain members of one party while supporting a presidential candidate from another as part of Nigeria’s evolving political culture.
“Being in the PDP while supporting President Tinubu is a good political trend evolving in Nigeria. It is commendable to have politicians behaving this way,” he said.
Obono-Obla also blamed APC leadership for failing to reconcile aggrieved members, arguing that better management of internal disagreements could have prevented the emergence of Wike’s coalition.
“It is up to the National Chairman of the party, who has not done anything to bring disaffected members together,” he said.
According to him, many original APC members had become alienated because of how party structures were being managed at the state level.
“If he ran the party well and brought disaffected members together, Wike’s coalition would be nonsensical,” Obono-Obla said.
