The battle over how President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election campaign should be built has taken a sharper turn, with a senior campaign spokesman telling the politicians involved to leave the television studios and prove their strength at the grassroots.
Ima Niboro, a spokesperson for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, delivered the blunt message amid the escalating war of words between FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
The dispute centres on Wike’s proposed Rainbow Coalition, a cross-party political alliance he says should unite politicians behind Tinubu’s presidential bid while allowing them to maintain their separate party structures for governorship and legislative elections.
But the proposal has run into resistance from APC governors, who insist that their political machinery remains firmly anchored to the APC and its candidates across the 2027 elections.
The disagreement has revived memories of the political drama that preceded the 2023 presidential election, when Wike and four other PDP governors — Seyi Makinde, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi — broke ranks with the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
The five governors, known as the G5, withheld their support for Atiku, citing internal disagreements within the PDP and demanding greater balance in the party’s leadership.
Wike later joined Tinubu’s Federal Executive Council as a minister while retaining his PDP membership, creating an unusual political arrangement in which a prominent opposition politician became part of an APC-led government.
That political relationship has now spilled into the 2027 preparations.
Wike has openly declared his support for Tinubu but maintains that his backing for the President does not mean abandoning the PDP or preventing opposition parties from challenging APC candidates in state and legislative contests.
His proposed Rainbow Coalition is intended, according to Wike, to bring politicians from different parties together for one objective: securing support for Tinubu at the presidential level.
The idea, however, has not gone down well with APC governors.
The governors have argued that their political structures will continue to work for the APC and its candidates throughout the 2027 elections, rather than operate through a separate cross-party arrangement.
Tensions rose further after Wike accused the APC governors of being “politically lazy” for rejecting the coalition.
Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, Senator Hope Uzodimma, subsequently defended the governors and their position.
Wike then challenged Uzodimma over his record of delivering votes for Tinubu during the 2023 presidential election, insisting that his own focus was on mobilising support for the President and not dictating the outcome of governorship or legislative races.
Amid the increasingly heated exchanges, Niboro has now urged both sides to stop the public arguments and take their political campaigns directly to the people.
Speaking on Arise Television’s The Morning Show, the APC campaign spokesman delivered his message in unmistakably blunt terms.
“When I said tone down the rhetoric, I do not mean stop working. Stop talking, go and work.”
Niboro said political leaders should demonstrate their influence through actual engagement with their constituencies rather than through repeated television appearances and public exchanges.
“All this shouting is not taking anybody anywhere. Go and work. Go and establish your authority on your political base.”
He urged politicians claiming to command grassroots support to leave the political arena of television debates and meet voters directly — in communities, marketplaces, streets and other public spaces.
“Get on the TV cameras. Go to the people. Go to the streets. Go to the marketplaces. Go and win the people.”
Niboro stressed that the issue was not necessarily about surrendering political territory to another camp, but about proving claims of political influence through genuine grassroots mobilisation.
His message was unmistakable: the argument over who has the stronger political structure should be settled not with increasingly heated statements, but with work on the ground.
“Stop all this high-sounding grammar that they are blowing everywhere is not leading anybody anywhere. Go and work.”
And he drove the point home:
“If you’re a political leader, stop talking. Go and work. That is my point.”
“Stop Talking, Go to Work!” — Tinubu Aide Fires Back at Wike & APC Governors
