Wike and the politics of disruption

By Oghenerume Wisdom

Guest Columnist

A Lot of people in Nigeria know who Nyesom Wike is. But there is only one man who probably does not know Wike. That man is Nyesom Wike himself. For many Nigerians, Wike is a disruptive character who will pull down a house if he does not sit at the table. For Wike himself, he is a good man who is always right while all others are wrong. But in politics, groups are valued more than individuals. Wike seems yet to come to terms with this political truism.

To his critics, he is a serial wrecker of party structures, a man whose personal ambition has exposed the character of so many men who were entrusted with the public will. And twice, Wike has been at the centre of disruptions. First, he was linked to the implosion of the PDP’s 2023 campaign. Today, his destabilising presence is visible within the very APC-led government he serves.

For reasons that the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) unanimously rejected his plans to impose a Rainbow Coalition on them, he is now kicking from all corners, dragging everyone in and reeling out claims that call the state of his mind into question. For instance, let us get back to the 2023 election season. Wike had made claims that he was instrumental in Bola Tinubu winning the presidential. Really? At the time Tinubu was campaigning for the APC ticket, Wike was also desperately pursuing the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He lost that opportunity at the PDP Convention when Abubakar Atiku pulled a magic trick with Aminu Tambuwal to beat him. He also may have thought that Nigerians suffer collective amnesia and have forgotten that he also desperately chased Atiku around, throwing in money and whatever he had, begging to be considered as running mate. Both failed. Till today, Wike has not denied claims contained in a viral video by Sen. Dino Melaye about his desperate pursuit of the PDP running mate slot to Atiku. Truth is, Wike only turned to Tinubu, at the nick of the presidential elections, not out of love for him but because of a consuming desire for vendetta against Atiku and the PDP. It’s common knowledge that the incurably vindictive Wike did not stop until he destroyed PDP.

Incidentally, while Wike was desperately pursuing both the PDP presidential ticket and the running mate slot, Sen. Hope Uzodimma, whom he has now singled out for unbridled attacks, was busy working for APC as the chairman of the presidential primaries convention committee. How could he at the same time have preferenc for any of the aspirations contesting the presidential primaries. Wike was not a member of APC so how could he have known that Uzodimma had expressed support to Ahmad Lawan in the run-up to the party primaries, in line with the dictates of the APC leadership at the time, and as a loyal party man, Uzodimma only ensured a very credible and transparent convention that produced Tinubu as candidate. It is on record that till this moment, none of the aspirants that contested the APC presidential primary election then has publicly or privately accused Uzodimma of manipulating the process. Indeed, Uzodimma deserved laurels for working the convention processes to produce Tinubu.

Besides, as a loyal party man and believer in party supremacy, Uzodimma stood firmly behind the party’s decision and backed Tinubu all the way to today. He worked very hard to ensure Tinubu’s victory in 2023 despite coming from a zone where Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) was clearly the preferred regional choice. This same cannot be said of Wike, who suddenly turned to Tinubu after his own desperate chase for the same office crashed. Moreover, I heard Wike say that Uzodimma could not win Imo State for Tinubu, and I laughed. We must recall that both Tinubu and Obi were candidates in that election. The cards were evenly laid out, though Obi had more advantage in the southeast. Obi’s regional advantage extended to Rivers State, where Wike was supposedly in charge. Post-2023 comments arising from the frosty relationship between Tinubu and some of those who managed the electoral process for him in 2023 indicate that Peter Obi won Rivers State. This claim was made public by Rotimi Amaechi, a former governor of the state and also an APC presidential aspirant in the 2023 race. Reports from August 2025 quoted Amaechi as saying: “Obi won Rivers State, but I do not know how the results were changed.” Changing an election result borders on criminality and ought to be treated as such. However, Nigeria has gone past that.

However, the January 2027 election will not follow in the same trajectory because Tinubu will be contesting as sitting president. As governor, Uzodimma has led Imo State to enjoy the best of Tinubu’s Renewed Hope mandate through increased allocation, with which the governor has successfully executed his infrastructure revolution across the state. The year 2027 is therefore, for Imo people, a time to graciously thank Tinubu for his work in Imo State and indeed, across the southeast. Imo people have already demonstrated this by the massive votes cast for the president during the APC primary election. In essence, Imo people do not need Wike, who has consistently told them that he is not an Igbo, to dictate how they show love to President Tinubu. As things stand, Imo people will stand with Uzodimma wherever he goes. This is a reality that Wike cannot disrupt with his invectives.

Wike has refused to openly join APC, preferring rather to hold to APC for relevance while clutching to PDP with both legs for his post-2027 plans. This shows him as operating as an independent power centre wherever he sits, willing to destabilise existing arrangements if he judges it advances his position. In his most recent television interview, he boasts that he will single-handedly deliver South-South states and the FCT to Tinubu in 2027. Could that be all that his rodomontade is worth? He is yet to tell if Tinubu will be re-elected by winning only the six states of the South-South and the FCT. Tinubu’s re-election victory across the South-South will be tied to several factors that have no Wike imprimatur. He cannot be boasting with South-South when their governors are still relevant. He need not push his relevance beyond Rivers State. Successfully beating Siminalayi Fubara into cowardly submission should not make him think that Govs Umo Eno, Douye Diri, Bassey Edet Otu, Sheriff Oborevwori, and Monday Okpebholo are his schoolboys. If he does, he will get a shocker because in politics, empires rise and empires fall.

His rhetoric and class accusation of the APC governors as “weak” have already opened a fight that builds tension within the party. It is a tension that he has positioned himself to benefit from. Unfortunately, he will not have Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and Seyi Makinde to dance around with. There is also no possibility of seeing any APC governor breaking away from the PGF to create another G5 with him. This will be a clear indication that he may dance alone, or just with his boys in Rivers State this time. However he works it, his action is now a source of tension within APC, a development that could lead to instability in the party, which President Tinubu obviously does not need. Instability, a few months before the presidential election, was what Wike delivered to the PDP in 2023. Is he about to repeat it in the APC in 2026?

• Wisdom writes in from Port Harcourt, Rivers State