Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, has challenged the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, to either join the All Progressives Congress (APC) or withdraw from the Rainbow Coalition if he intends to support President Bola Tinubu’s re-election in 2027.

Lawal said Wike could not support Tinubu at the presidential level while simultaneously backing candidates of other political parties in governorship and legislative elections.

The governor stated this in an interview with Channels Television’s Inside Sources on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday.

He said the position of APC governors on Wike’s cross-party political platform remained unchanged despite the minister’s repeated defence of the arrangement.

“Our message is very, very clear: Be on one side. You can’t be in two sides. If you’re in APC, please come out and support APC. Not you’re supporting APC here and you’re supporting other political parties somewhere else. It doesn’t make sense,” Lawal said.

According to him, APC governors would continue to insist that support for Tinubu should be accompanied by support for APC candidates across the different levels of the 2027 elections.

“And that is why we maintain our stand, and it is very clear, the message is very clear. He can speak, he can say whatever he wants to say, but our position has been very, very clear: APC all the way from head to toe,” he added.

Asked whether the governors were effectively asking Wike to join the APC, Lawal replied, “Exactly. What’s the essence?”

The Zamfara governor also said he would raise the matter with President Tinubu, insisting that Wike’s political allegiance needed to be clearly defined ahead of the elections.

“It’s something that I will take up with the President when he comes back. So, let there be a very, very clear line where this guy belongs to. It’s either he’s in APC or he’s out. It’s simple. And I go with my brothers, the governors,” he said.

The disagreement centres on the Rainbow Coalition being promoted by Wike as a cross-party platform to mobilise support for Tinubu’s re-election.

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Wike has maintained that the coalition is separate from the APC and that supporting Tinubu for president does not require politicians to abandon their parties or stop supporting candidates contesting governorship and legislative elections.

In previous comments, Wike cited the 2023 election, when members of the G5 group of PDP governors backed Tinubu’s presidential bid while remaining members of the PDP and supporting candidates in other contests.

The APC governors, however, have said they would support Tinubu as well as APC candidates and would not endorse political arrangements that could weaken the ruling party or affect its candidates.

Wike has also argued that the Rainbow Coalition is designed to bring together politicians from different parties who support Tinubu, rather than create a parallel APC structure.

The FCT minister has further defended his position by arguing that voters can support different political parties at different levels of an election.

Lawal also responded to Wike’s description of some APC governors as “politically lazy,” saying the minister knew the governors to whom the remark was directed.

“Well, I mean, he knows the people he’s referring to, honestly. As for me, I mean, you can’t say that in Zamfara State. The difference is very, very clear. I invite anybody to come and see what we’re doing in Zamfara State,” he said.

The exchange adds to the increasingly public disagreement between Wike and some APC governors over the political structure for Tinubu’s 2027 re-election campaign, with both sides maintaining different positions on how presidential support should relate to contests for governorship and legislative seats.

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