By Augustine Akhilomen

The political crisis of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State have raised a lot of eyebrows and the undercurrents over the alleged move by the APC leadership to surreptitiously give the party structures to the current FCT Minister, Nyesome Wike.


Recall that recently, the National Working Committee of the party under the leadership of the National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, announced the dissolution of the Rivers excos and replaced it with a caretaker committee to run the party’s affairs in the state for six months despite the fact that there was no divisions or rancour within the party.


The development came two months after some chieftains of the party loyal to a former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and led by the state governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, lamented that President Bola Tinubu has subtly sacrificed them for Wike, and his loyalists.


Mr. Wike is still a bonafide and card carrying member of the main opposition party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), under which he became the governor of the state for eight years before he was appointed by President Bola Tinubu and given the Rivers ministerial slot, ignoring APC members, including Tonye Cole, who was the party’s governorship candidate in the 2023 general elections.


The decision did not however go down well with some members of the party, as they accused the Ganduje-led NWC of planning to impose and handover the structure of the party to Wike. The state Publicity Secretary of the APC, Darlington Nwauju, indeed, said the NWC does not have the powers to dissolve an elected executive, describing the action as extra-constitutional.


“The purported dissolution of the state executives of the APC in Rivers State is extra-constitutional and falls flat in the face of sound crisis management and peace building”.


Speaking further he said: “The NWC cannot without approval by the NEC take such extreme measures as dissolve duly elected executives of the party or grant waivers for any individual to occupy positions who is not qualified under our constitution to do so.

“Leaving our party in the hands of political undertakers is too much of a risk for all progressive-minded individuals in Rivers State.”


Without any doubt, the reality of Wike who is a member of the PDP serving in the APC led federal government, under the leadership of President Tinubu suggests some strong backdoor political negotiations. What could be the details of the negotiations? Could it be that typical of Nigerian politics, that APC is negotiating to get Wike decamp from the PDP and join the APC? Is this an attempt by the APC to prepare grounds for the second term of President Tinubu and is the country gradually moving towards the dreaded one-party state? These are pertinent questions agitating the minds of political observers in the state.


Interestingly, some APC leaders in Rivers have begun to shift their support from being loyal to Amaechi to now aligning with Wike. For instance, on Thursday, October 26, 2023, Chief Victor Giadom, APC National Vice Chairman South-South and a long-time ally of Amaechi led a delegation of APC leaders from Rivers State on a courtesy visit to Wike. It’s not unlikely that other political jobbers would follow suit.


“I will not be surprised that former Amaechi supporters would move to the corner of Wike when the chips are down. That’s the character of the Nigerian politician and why we are in this mess”, says Paul Adebayo, a Lagos based political analyst.


Given all these unfolding developments in APC, it is very clear that the NWC decision dissolving the Rivers State executives of the party at all levels was made to prepare ground for the emergence of Wike as the new leader of APC in the state.


Critics are worried that rather than restoring constitutional order and returning the APC to its founding vision of a progressive party, the current leadership under Ganduje is playing dirty politics by expelling perceived political opponents. “The APC NWC is now abrasive; it takes decisions based on convenience without reference to provisions of the party’s constitution”, Adebayo laments.


Again, since Wike has already fallen apart with the current Rivers State Governor, Chief Siminalayi Fubara, the prospect of Fubara coming to APC, in the view of political watchers in the state, is foreclosed. Therefore, the strategy of APC in Rivers State in 2027 will be to further fragment the people of the state.

Thus, rather than working to unite members of the party in the state with a view to preparing for next election, the party at the national level is seen as playing petty politics to pave the way for Wike and his boys to take over leaving Amaechi and others in limbo. The current impasse therefore is all about the next presidential election and making it easy for APC to win the state for Tinubu.

Reacting to the development, a former National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, argued that the dissolution of Rivers State executives is an indication that the NWC was preparing the stage for the emergence of the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike as the new leader of the party.

“Given all these unfolding developments in APC, it is very clear that the NWC decision, dissolving Rivers State Executives of the party at all levels, is preparing the stage for the emergence of Wike as the new leader of APC in Rivers State.

“With Chief Okocha, who is alleged to be a political ally of Wike given the responsibility of serving as Caretaker Chairman, it simply means that all the new emerging executives for APC at all levels in Rivers State will be Wike’s supporters. This is the dirty politics at play in Rivers State.


“With such reality, it simply means the structures of APC in FCT will also be dissolved to produce new APC leaders at all levels of the party who will be loyal to Wike.


“And any state where APC is led by people who might have opposed President Asiwaju Tinubu will similarly be dissolved.”


In the same vein, an APC chieftain Eze Chukwuemeka Eze also alleged that the APC leadership is conspiring to cede control of the party in Rivers to Nyesom Wike. “I am happy to note that both Tinubu and Ganduje have suffered and tasted the bitter pills of Wike in most of his attempts to decimate the party and to handover the party structure to him and his agents is nothing but sheer wickedness and unreasonableness because it will definitely backfire,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Chief Tony Okocha, has debunked insinuations by some aggrieved members of the party in the state that President Tinubu handed over the party’s structure to Wike.

Okocha, said that as a founding member of the PDP, Wike has not indicated any interest in leaving the leading opposition political party in the country for any other party. Okocha said, “If you are talking about alliance, I aligned with Nyesom Wike and I am still aligning with him. The issue of handing over the party to Nyesom Wike; he is not a member of the APC for crying out loud and everybody knows that he is a staunch founding member of the PDP.

“He has boasted times without number that he has benefited a lot from the PDP and that he was not in a hurry to leave the party. I am not aware; he hasn’t mentioned it to me and he has not mentioned it to anybody.



“Of course, he is not a man that will hide a decision like that from Nigerians. If Wike wishes at any time to enter any other political party different from the PDP, Nigerians will hear; Nigerians will know.


“So, as we speak, he is a staunch member of the Peoples Democratic Party. For anybody to assume that the President is handing over APC structure to a PDP member, that person will be missing the point.”

There are however growing fears that the event of Rivers State could be a possible indication that the country may be tilting towards a one party state under the current administration of Tinubu. Few political actors have had the kind of leverage to openly control the structures of the ruling and the main opposition parties in any state of the federation as Wike now has over the APC and PDP in Rivers State.

The nearest was the late Senator Olusola Saraki who as an NPN stalwart influenced the emergence of a UPN governor in 1983 a feat he repeated in 2003 when while in the ANPP he ushered his son, Bukola as governor.


It is also however not certain, if Tinubu will be ready to sacrifice the interest of his party, the APC and handover the ministerial slot of Rivers State to Wike, who has said repeatedly that he has no intention of dumping the PDP for APC.

As it is, Nigerians will be watching closely to see how events would play out in the oil rich state because if the outcome of the last election is anything to go by, any occupant of Aso rock will be interested in Rivers State. Observers would also be awake to see if the sudden turn of events in the state portends good tidings for the nation’s fragile democracy.