In a fiery year-end media chat, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, launched a scathing broadside against two fellow governors from the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressive Congress, branding Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde a liar and mocking Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s recent political defection.
The explosive session, held at Wike’s residence in Port Harcourt, marked a dramatic escalation of the internal crisis plaguing the PDP.
Wike’s primary target was Governor Makinde, whom he accused of fabricating a damaging claim. Makinde had previously told journalists that Wike vowed to “hold down” the PDP for President Bola Tinubu ahead of the 2027 elections during a 2024 meeting at the Presidential Villa.
“That’s a blatant lie,” Wike declared emphatically. He challenged the timing and motive behind Makinde’s revelation, questioning why the Oyo governor had waited until their relationship soured before making the allegation public.
Wike detailed the attendees of the said meeting, listing himself, Makinde, and three other former PDP governors—Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu, and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi—as well as the President’s Chief of Staff, insisting the account was false and “unfair.”
The minister then took a deeply personal turn, responding to Makinde’s earlier boast about securing a lucrative $1 million contract in 1997 while Wike was in law school. Wike retraced Makinde’s political history, highlighting a series of electoral failures before the PDP leadership intervened.
“In 2007, Seyi ran under ANPP as senator; he lost. He came to the man who had no $1m to help him get structure,” Wike stated, asserting that it was only after the party structure in Oyo was handed to him that Makinde became governor in 2019. He summed up their divergent paths with a cutting remark: “He chose to be a contractor; I chose to have power. And I had the power.”
Beyond personal jabs, Wike framed described as the architect of the PDP’s current paralysis. He accused the governor of fueling a leadership crisis driven by an undisclosed presidential ambition, which led to litigation, defections, and a weakened party.
“How did the PDP enter this crisis? It is Seyi Makinde’s ambition,” Wike alleged, pointing to the party’s failure to field candidates in recent off-cycle elections in Ekiti and Osun states as direct consequences.
Turning to the simmering conflict in his home state, Wike dismissed Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s recent defection from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress as an empty move.
He mocked the governor for lacking political cohesion, noting that the state assembly members and local government chairmen had defected before him. “As a governor, you are supposed to move with the Assembly, council chairmen and party structure. But in this case, who did he move with? These people moved on their own,” Wike said.
He bluntly dismissed the notion that Fubara’s defection or chants of support for President Tinubu guaranteed him an automatic ticket for the 2027 gubernatorial election. “Shouting ‘On your mandate we stand’ does not imply automatic ticket,” he stressed.
The PDP’s national leadership has responded with equal force, issuing a statement that branded Wike a “recurrent troublemaker” and “agent provocateur.” The party’s National Working Committee, led by Tanimu Turaki, accused Wike of a longstanding pattern of fomenting crises for selfish gain, referencing his roles in the turbulent tenures of former chairmen Ali Modu Sheriff, Uche Secondus, and Iyorchia Ayu. The statement also condemned Wike’s open support for the APC’s presumed 2027 candidate while claiming PDP membership as clear anti-party activity.
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