•FCT minister, Nyesom Wike
The Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), the umbrella body of governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has rejected any alliance or political arrangement that could undermine President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid or affect the party’s candidates in the 2027 general election.
The governors said they would neither participate in, support nor endorse any political arrangement capable of weakening the APC or creating competing interests within the ruling party, reports Daily Trust.
Chairman of the forum and Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma, made the position known after a closed-door meeting of the governors at the Imo State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja.
The development comes amid reported political differences between the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, and some APC governors, including Uzodimma and Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
During a chat with reporters in Port Harcourt earlier this month, Wike had spoken about his rift with the duo.
“Take for example, Kwara, he has been the one championing this campaign against me everywhere. Yes, I have confronted him too. I don’t talk about what I cannot defend,” Wike had said.
According to the minister, AbdulRazaq had accused him of sponsoring politicians against the governor’s preferred candidates in Kwara.
Wike, however, said the governor should instead appreciate his role in providing a political platform for aggrieved APC figures who left the ruling party for the PDP.
He said such politicians could have joined the wider coalition opposed to Tinubu but chose to operate within the PDP, which he presented as evidence of the political accommodation he had provided.
AbdulRazaq, who is serving his second term, has been at the centre of competing interests within the party over who succeeds him.
Several APC governorship aspirants had earlier raised concerns over the direction of the party in the state, while the G15 group of APC stakeholders subsequently mounted a public challenge to the governor’s leadership of the party structure.
Wike’s allegation against Uzodinma was less detailed but equally direct.
“Governor Hope, he knows the support I give to him,” he said, recalling that the Imo State governor had at one point declined to support him.
Wike, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been associated with opposition candidates in the 2027 elections in some states, including Imo and Kwara.
In Imo, Wike is supporting the PDP governorship candidate, while in Kwara he is backing Senator Saliu Mustapha in the Kwara Central senatorial contest against Governor AbdulRazaq.
Mustapha, a former APC member, defected to the PDP after losing the APC ticket for the Kwara Central senatorial district to AbdulRazaq.
Reading the communique issued after the meeting, Uzodimma said the governors’ priority was to support candidates officially fielded by the APC at all levels.
He said the forum had no intention of supporting candidates outside the APC, stressing that the party’s candidates were contesting under its platform.
“The APC Governors Forum unanimously resolved that its members will not participate in, support or endorse any alliance or political arrangement capable of undermining the re-election of Mr President, weakening the APC or adversely affecting any candidate of the party at all levels.
“In other words, the forum has no intention to support any candidate at any level that is not an APC candidate because our candidates who are contesting the election are being sponsored by our party.
“The governors’ campaign commitment is exclusively to all APC candidates. All levels of the party campaign architecture will align with the expectations of Mr President and the strategic objectives of the party.”
On the proposed APC Presidential Campaign Council, the governors said they would take leading roles in mobilising support for Tinubu’s re-election in their respective states.
According to them, the campaign strategy would focus on grassroots mobilisation, with efforts to reach communities and engage different demographic groups across the country.
The governors also pledged to strengthen internal party unity and harmonise campaign structures from the national level down to the constituencies.
They said they would equally continue to drive development in their respective states in line with the administration’s Renewed Hope agenda. agenda.
