The lead analyst on TVC News’ Journalists’ Hangout, Mr. Babajide Kolade-Otitoju, has said that the quarrel between the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Barrister Nyesom Wike, and governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was provoked by the minister himself, and would never have entered the public domain had he not attacked two of them during a media chat.
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Appearing alongside the journalist, Mr. Adeniyi Ifetayo, on the programme anchored by Mr. Binga Oreshegun, the analyst nonetheless defended the minister’s right to field candidates through his own party and endorsed his description of some of the governors as politically lazy.
The discussion followed the minister’s reiteration of support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s re-election in 2027, coupled with his insistence that the Peoples Democratic Party remains free to field candidates for the governorship, National Assembly and State House of Assembly elections, and that the rainbow coalition is not an arrangement with the ruling party but a platform for people across parties to mobilise support for the President.
Asked what he made of the minister’s response to the governors, Kolade-Otitoju placed responsibility for the escalation squarely on him.
“This whole controversy was caused by Wike himself,” he said. “If I know the governor of Kwara State very well, and if I know the governor of Imo State very well, they are not going to engage in warfare with him on TV and on the pages of newspapers, because it’s pointless.”
“If he had not said during his media chat that the governor of Kwara and the chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, which is the governors from the APC, if he had not said that they were looking for his downfall, this whole thing would not have happened. It would not have happened, and there would have been no controversy at all.”
He described the entire affair as “just a storm in a teacup,” adding that both sides are “literally saying the same thing.”
“Wike is focused on ensuring that the President wins his election. The governors too, the President is their focus. They want to ensure that the President wins this election.”
The analyst warned that the governors have more at stake in the presidential contest than they may appreciate.
“A lot of them know, and if they don’t know, that means they are not intelligent people. If the President falls, the bandwagon effect will chase them away. They better know now, because in politics, momentum is everything.”
“If the President loses that election, that bandwagon effect will consume a lot of the APC governors. So this is a matter that they have to handle very well.”
He disclosed a private conversation in support of that reading: “I spoke with two governors yesterday. And those two governors told me, look, we will manage this guy. Because if they don’t manage this matter very well, the President could be the loser in the final analysis.”
Kolade-Otitoju said neither of the two governors the minister named had ever spoken about him publicly, and offered a particularly warm assessment of the Kwara governor.
“Neither of the two governors, the governor of Kwara and the governor of Imo, ever said anything about him in public. Abdulrazaq does not even grant interviews. Have you ever seen him doing an interview? He has no time for that.”
“And he’s an excellent speaker of the English language. He’s a bright guy. If you engage him, you talk business and economy with Abdulrazaq, you know that he’s a joy to listen to. But he does not do interviews. He has no time for that. He is not known to have publicly attacked Wike.”
He then turned to what he regards as the minister’s central failing: “Apart from the President, there’s nobody that is off limit for him. And as a big politician who is also advancing in age, that attitude, you must change that attitude. He has not found somebody who can convince him that taking on people in this manner is wrong. You can identify people that you want to take on, but it’s not every fight that you must engage in.”
Turning to the substance of the dispute, the analyst set out what he sees as the minister’s strategy, and defended its logic.
“Now let’s face it, those governors are also fighting for their political future. They have the right to.”
“What Wike has done is to harvest some disagreements within the APC. Some people contested in the primaries and lost out. Wike does not want them to go to the Atiku column. So he decided to bring them to his own platform. Come and contest on the platform of PDP.”
“That way he’s trying to keep the PDP alive, while making it clear to his people that look, we can’t win the election now. It’s better we support this President.”
He noted that the platform in question is the recognised one: “Of course it is his own faction of the PDP that will take part in these elections, because they boxed themselves into a corner by the decision to go and do a meaningless convention. So invariably they lost out in the courts. Wike gained pre-eminence. It is his faction that is running the show, and his faction is bent on supporting the President in this election.”
He said a collision was therefore unavoidable: “But in each of those states, these governors either have people that they want to see replace them, or some of these governors are first-time governors seeking re-election. There’s no way they won’t be on a collision course.”
The analyst was categorical that the governors have no standing to object to the minister’s candidates.
“This is not an issue. You can’t tell Wike not to have his own candidates. It’s not in your party. He is supporting the President, a pillar behind the President, but he has made it clear that he wants to remain in the PDP.”
“And he knows that if he remains in the PDP, he will be like the biggest fish in the pond there. He has no competition. So you can’t tell him not to contest, or that his candidate should not contest.”
He pointed out that the governors’ resolution answers a demand nobody made: “When they said no alliance, Wike didn’t ask for an alliance. So this is why I’m saying this is a needless fight. It’s just a mere storm in a teacup. There’s no alliance. He’s doing his thing. You are doing your thing.”
The analyst identified what he believes is the governors’ real fear, and dismissed it.
“I think the big problem for those governors is that they think Wike is going about saying that the President has endorsed some of his own candidates, which directly puts those governors in danger.”
“If their feeling is that that is how he is thinking, then they should forget it, because the President will not get into that kind of agreement with anyone. Who will believe that kind of story?”
He added that the matter is capable of quiet resolution: “I’m convinced that this is a President who can call these people and say, look, all of you are working for me, I don’t want this fight.”
Asked directly about the minister’s description of the governors as politically lazy, and whether he is entitled to take on the Progressive Governors Forum, the analyst endorsed the characterisation and gave his reasons.
“I completely agree with him that some of the governors are politically lazy. And I will tell you why. There’s no reason for what they are doing. Wike never asked for any alliance. What he said is that I’m supporting the President, and everything he’s doing, even within PDP, is geared towards supporting the President.”
“The APC governors, the President is their leader, so it is in their interest to make sure that they work for the President. So if you see somebody working for the President, and you are now attacking that person, it’s needless, because this guy is doing what is supposed to help your cause. Support for the President can come from outside your party.”
The analyst said the friction in Kwara is the product of the governor’s own handling of the succession rather than anything the minister did.
“Some of the governors have made mistakes, which is not Wike’s fault. It is their fault. For example, the governor of Kwara State first picked somebody and said this is the person that I am endorsing for governor. Everybody has seen it. He raised the hand of the person. Then he came again and said no, that guy is not there, I’m picking another person.”
“How do you expect the person that you had picked, that you had announced to everybody, how do you want him to feel when you go ahead to pick someone else?”
He pointed to the senatorial tickets in the same state: “There are three senators in that state. None of them got the ticket to come back. How do you want them to feel? How do you expect them to think about their own political career? So if they now move to PDP, which is a platform for them, don’t you know that you have shot yourself in the foot? Because the governor himself came through a coalition.”
Asked whether the governor could be blamed, he said the failure was one of political management: “I’m not blaming him. I’m saying they shot themselves in the foot. In Kwara, the three senators did not get tickets to come back. I would have expected the governor would have said, okay, let me balance it. Let us share this power. But we have in Nigeria governors who just like this idea of winner takes all.”
He identified two sources of the Imo governor’s displeasure.
“Why is the Imo State governor not happy? There are two reasons. One, the state governor was a supporter of another aspirant and they did not achieve their aim there. Secondly, the secretary of the PDP is the candidate of the PDP in that state. So they believe that, oh, Wike has sponsored somebody against us.”
He returned to the same principle: “But in fairness to the guy, you cannot ask him not to have candidates. How will you say that? Because it’s not fair on Wike. Wike is garrulous. Wike can say things, I agree. But in fairness to Wike, he said I’m going to support the President. He didn’t say I’m going to defect. He didn’t say I’m going to support your candidate.”
Asked whose side the President would take, the governors’ or the minister’s, the analyst answered that he can take both.
“Both sides. You see, I’ve already said this is a storm in a teacup. Both of them are saying the same thing in different ways. They are both supporting the President.”
“The governors want to pick the people who will supplant them in 2027. Wherever Wike puts a different person, it has become a real competition. He wants to push for his candidate to win, the governors want to push for their candidate. You cannot say that I don’t field candidates in so-and-so states.”
The analyst pointed to two governors who support the President without belonging to his party, as evidence that the objection to the minister is inconsistent.
“The governor of Anambra does not pretend that he is a backer of the President. He has not left APGA, and no one can tell him not to field candidates in the coming elections.”
On Abia, he was more guarded: “Go and check the federal appointees from that state. They are the governor’s people. I will not say publicly here that he is openly supportive, because it is not open, but people are speculating that he wants to support the President. He has never said it anywhere.”
Rejecting the demand that the minister formalise his position by defecting, the analyst called it a failure of political maturity and drew a comparison with the United States.
“People can be in a different party and work. It’s just our lack of political maturity. You can be in a rival party and work for a candidate, and even work for that government in power, like in the US for example. Obama headhunted some bright people in the Republican Party. So they don’t have to join his party, but they can work for their nation.”
“Wike is working for Nigeria now as FCT Minister. But people keep saying, if you want, stop interfering in our matter, come and join us. He doesn’t have to join your party. Let’s have political maturity. He does not have to join the APC to work for the President.”
His qualification was directed back at the minister’s manner rather than his method.
“What we can say is, you too, try your best, moderate the way you talk. You can’t just be abusing people because you are doing a media chat, that there’s no off limit, that there’s nothing that you can’t say.”
“So does it mean that now in a media chat, if they ruffle your feathers or they annoy you, you go and say some negative things about the party or even the President? So there has to be moderation, because if he did not attack them, this would not have come into the open. I can tell you, because it’s not Abdulrazaq that will go and grant an interview attacking him.”
He closed with a formula for both camps: “This is a meaningless fight. Support your candidate, let him support his candidate, and whoever triumphs, so be it. Let all of them work for the President. When you work for the President, work for your own candidates. The elections are not taking place the same day.”
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