The Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has dismissed the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike claims that the opposition party cannot secure up to ten percent of the votes in Rivers State during next year’s general election.
The political dispute follows a weekend declaration by Wike, the former Rivers State Governor, who asserted that Atiku and the ADC would fail to hit a 10% voting threshold in the oil-rich South-South state in 2027.
Wike had boasted during a Saturday cross-party luncheon that no outside candidate could win the state’s governorship seat unless officially endorsed by his ruling “Rainbow Coalition.”
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Reacting through an official press statement released on Monday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku maintained that Rivers voters are far too sophisticated to be manipulated or dictated to by a single politician.
He expressed deep concern over the minister’s phrasing, noting that it was highly troubling for an individual to speak as though the electorate were transactional goods to be distributed at will.
Atiku said Rivers votes are not Wike’s property and the citizens of the state are not political slaves.
According to him, they are intelligent, independent-minded Nigerians who will make their choices based on the realities confronting them and the future they desire for their children.
He said no individual, regardless of influence or access to federal power, can dictate how an entire state will vote.
Atiku argued that the minister’s inflammatory comments actually betray a deep-seated anxiety spreading across the President Bola Tinubu camp.
He stated that the rapid emergence of the broad-based ADC coalition has rattled the ruling class, triggering public outbursts aimed at downplaying the opposition’s momentum.
He added that while Wike spends his time playing political oracle and engaging in perpetual election campaigns, everyday citizens are focused on completely different structural hardships.
He added that Nigerians are more concerned about the soaring cost of living, worsening insecurity, and economic hardship than the political predictions of a minister who appears to have abandoned governance for perpetual electioneering.
The war of words underscores a widening ideological divide ahead of the 2027 polls.
While Wike seeks to completely consolidate power in Rivers State through his multi-party alliance, Atiku’s newly repositioned ADC framework is banking on public frustration with ongoing economic pressures to break the ruling party’s regional strongholds.
