The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday mocked Rotimi Amaechi’s claim that Atiku Abubakar has already won the 2027 presidential election, saying the town hall meeting where the prediction was made drew fewer than 200 people. Wike spoke at his media chat while responding to a suggestion that the African Democratic Congress ticket of Atiku and Amaechi was unsettling supporters of President Bola Tinubu. With the presidential election fixed for January 16, 2027, the remarks add another chapter to one of the longest running personal feuds in Rivers State politics.
“I watched Amaechi, he had a town hall meeting in Cross River. I can tell you the numbers not up to 200 people,” Wike said. According to the minister, Amaechi told the audience the election had been settled on the basis of where the leading candidates come from. Wike recounted Amaechi as saying: “Atiku is from where? North. Tinubu is from where? South. Obi is from where? South. Donald Duke is from where? South. Atiku has won the election.”
Wike questioned why a running mate would make such a claim before supporters. “How can a vice-presidential candidate go to a town hall meeting, standing and telling his supporters, ‘Do you know how this election has been won?'” he asked. Pressed on whether Amaechi’s point was that Atiku, as the main northern contender, would gain from a divided southern vote, Wike pointed to the last election. “In 2023, Atiku ran, Obi ran, Tinubu ran, who won?” he asked, adding that 2027 “will be totally different from 2023”.
The field Amaechi described is drawn from the final list of 18 presidential candidates published by the Independent National Electoral Commission on September 12. Atiku, from Adamawa State, is the ADC candidate, while Tinubu is running for the All Progressives Congress, Peter Obi for the Nigeria Democratic Congress and former Cross River governor Donald Duke for the Peoples Redemption Party. Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, another southerner, is on the ballot for the Allied Peoples Movement. Obi’s running mate, however, is former Kano State governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, which places a major northern figure on one of the southern tickets.
The 2023 figures help explain why both men read the regional arithmetic so differently. INEC declared Tinubu winner with 8,794,726 votes, about 36.6 per cent of valid votes cast, ahead of Atiku with 6,984,520 (29.1 per cent) and Obi with 6,101,533 (25.4 per cent). Kwankwaso, then the New Nigeria Peoples Party candidate, polled 1,496,687 votes and won only Kano. Atiku was the leading northern candidate in that contest too, but the northern vote was split, and he finished about 1.8 million votes behind Tinubu.
Cross River, where Amaechi held the meeting, is Duke’s home state. It was won by Obi in 2023, not by Tinubu or Atiku. The state is part of the South South, a zone where Amaechi and Wike have spent years competing for influence.
The rivalry between the two men goes back more than a decade. Wike served as Chief of Staff to Amaechi when the latter was governor of Rivers State, before both men fell out and went separate political ways. Amaechi later served as Minister of Transportation and director general of the APC presidential campaign before defecting to the ADC. Wike, who succeeded him as governor in 2015, is now a member of the Tinubu cabinet and is backing the President’s re-election.
Amaechi’s place on the ADC ticket followed a contested primary. The party said Atiku polled 1,846,370 votes against 504,117 for Amaechi, a result Amaechi initially rejected over alleged voter disenfranchisement. The ADC then named him Atiku’s running mate on June 15, describing the pairing as a national ticket capable of bridging regional divides.
Tuesday’s comments came a week after Wike, in a video shared by his media aide on October 5, accused Amaechi of saying that only thieves and mad people would vote for Tinubu. The Rivers chapter of the ADC has previously dismissed the minister’s attacks on Amaechi as a sign of fear over the opposition’s growing support in the state. Its publicity secretary, Chizy Enyi, argued that a man who insists the opposition poses no threat would not spend so much time attacking it.
Campaigns are now under way across the country, with the presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for January 16, 2027. Governorship and State House of Assembly elections will follow on February 6.