- Insist they must stop benefiting from other people’s hard work
BY EDMOND ODOK – Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has challenged governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to secure victories in their respective states for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid, warning them to stop expecting a free ride in the upcoming presidential poll
Speaking with his trademark uncompromising bluntness at the inauguration of the APC Presidential Campaign Council in Abuja on Wednesday, Wike said the era of political freeloading within the ruling coalition is officially over and tasked the governors to sweat for their votes rather than expecting to coast to victory on the backs of others’ hard work.
He demanded that every State governor must roll up their sleeves, deliver tangible results to their citizens, and actively secure votes for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu instead of waiting to harvest where they did not sow after next year’s general elections.
The former Rivers State governor insisted that reliance on collective party efforts or the hard work of others should no longer guarantee political survival, stressing that the only path to victory is for each governor to prove their worth by transforming their respective states and earning the electorate’s trust directly.
“Any governor who fails to deliver his state for the President should not join us in celebrating victory,” Wike declared at the high-stakes Campaign Council event, pledging that he was committed to delivering Rivers State and the FCT to the President come 2027.
“If you don’t deliver your State and the president wins, don’t say we have won. It is not a question of I am chairman of this, I am secretary of this, I am a member of this. Rivers and FCT, it is taken. I challenge any area council that can say they don’t see the presence of Mr President,” he stated.
He went further to say that, “I told the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, the other day that if the President did not win in Lagos, don’t say we have won.”
Expressing happiness to see his name as the Coordinator in charge of Rivers and FCT, Wike informed the gathering of telling all FCT Area Council Chairmen that because of the projects in the territory, the people would vote for President Tinubu.
Also present at the Campaign Council inauguration were Governors Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State and Ademola Adeleke of Osun State who promised to hit the ground running working for the President’s re-election
Reports making the rounds widely quote Wike, the self-acclaimed Leader of factionalised opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of as putting his political appointment on the line to up the ante, vowing to resign his ministerial position by January 2027 if he fails to decisively deliver both Rivers State and the FCT to the President.
