BY COLLINS OPUROZOR
I have read the argument that Governor Hope Uzodimma is resisting Barr. Nyesom Wike because he is afraid of losing Imo State. Honestly, that argument does not survive even a basic examination of the facts. Wike is not the man standing between Uzodimma and Imo State. He is not in the Governor’s succession calculations. He does not determine who takes over from Uzodimma or who gets what, how and when in the state. So why would Uzodimma be fighting him over Imo? The answer is much simpler.
Instead, Uzodimma spoke as Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF). He was speaking for governors whose mandate came from the APC. And he was defending the political house that produced them. The PGF has now made its position clear. Its members will not support any arrangement capable of weakening the APC or its candidates.
The real issue is Wike’s personal expansionist ambition. It is also about the political arrangement he represents. Wike says he supports President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for 2027. Fine. Nobody should quarrel with that. But he has also made it clear that the Rainbow Coalition is not an APC structure. He has said PDP which he leads can field candidates against APC candidates. That is where the matter becomes serious. How can an APC governor be expected to mobilise his people for Tinubu while another political structure, led by a serving FCT Minister in the same Federal Government, is free to build and mobilise candidates against the APC in the same political environment? Wike himself has drawn that distinction. He says the Rainbow Coalition is for Tinubu, not for APC candidates. That is precisely why Uzodimma’s leadership of the PGF cannot pretend that there is no problem.
There is an even more troubling dimension. Wike is a major political actor empowered by the APC-led administration with access to the influence, resources, visibility and institutional networks that come with one of the most powerful appointments in the Federal Government. At the same time, he is the leading figure behind a political coalition that is expanding across the country. If that coalition is raising candidates against APC candidates, then Nigerians are entitled to ask a very simple question: who is financing this political army? If the expectation is that Wike, as its leader and chief political operator, will be the principal financier of its candidates nationwide, the implications are enormous. The resources he has access to as Minister cannot become the foundation of a political machine working against the candidates of the ruling party that empowered him. The conflict of interest is too serious for the APC to ignore. This is where the matter moves from ordinary political disagreement to something potentially catastrophic for the APC.
Look around the country. The pattern is becoming difficult to dismiss. In Ebonyi, the Rainbow Coalition has become part of a political contest in which a PDP governorship candidate is challenging Governor Francis Nwifuru and the APC structure, sponsoring bitter attacks and discrediting the governor. In Kwara, political forces opposed to Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq have been brought together under the PDP platform, given tickets and resources to take over the state. These are the real conversations. They affect real governors. They affect real candidates. They affect the APC directly. And that is why Uzodimma cannot simply sit in Owerri and pretend that none of this concerns him. As Chairman of the PGF, he has a responsibility that extends beyond Imo State.
The same issue is now appearing in Imo State. In Orlu Zone, people presenting themselves as members or supporters of the Rainbow Coalition are openly campaigning for Mr. Peter Obi of the NDC. Yet the same coalition says it is mobilising for President Tinubu. How does one reconcile these things? Wike is entitled to his political strategy. But the APC is equally entitled to defend its own.
The funny thing is that Uzodimma could have chosen the easy road. He could have kept quiet. He could have said it was Wike’s business. He could have protected only his immediate political interests and allowed everybody else to sort themselves out. But that would not have been leadership. The office of Chairman of the PGF comes with responsibilities. Sometimes, leadership means saying what others would rather not hear. Sometimes, it means taking the abuse so that the institution you represent does not take the damage. Uzodimma has chosen that road. The bullets are coming. He is still standing. And he is taking them not because Wike threatens his seat in Imo, but because he sees what could happen when a ruling party allows a parallel, increasingly hostile, political machine to grow around it.
What Wike is presenting today may look like an alliance. But experienced politicians know that interests have begun to collide. The APC must therefore have something of its own to fall back on. Its own structures. Its own people. Its own governors. It’s own candidates. Its own strength. Above all, it must know that the machinery of government cannot become the launching pad for a parallel political empire. That is the principle Uzodimma is upholding. He is not taking bullets for his political survival. He is taking bullets for the survival of the APC. And sometimes, that is the clearest test of leadership.
