Farouk Wike crisis comments on Arise TV as APC chieftain Farouk Aliyu says the party will not condone FCT Minister Nyesom Wike’s attacks on governors
All Progressives Congress chieftain Farouk Aliyu told Arise Television’s Morning Show on Thursday 17 September 2026 that the ruling party would not let Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike carry the Peoples Democratic Party’s internal quarrel into APC ranks.
Also read: Rhodes-Vivour Says Yoruba Fluency Will Shape 2027 Campaign
Farouk Aliyu spoke in Nigeria as argument grew over Nyesom Wike’s dual position. Nyesom Wike serves in the APC-led Federal Government yet remains a member of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Nyesom Wike has lately called some APC governors lazy and 419ners and has pushed a Rainbow Coalition in Rivers State behind President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s bid for re-election in 2027.
Farouk Aliyu said the conduct would not be tolerated simply because Nyesom Wike had fought similar battles inside the Peoples Democratic Party. “When Wike was doing that to his party, PDP, that’s his party really, but now this is our own party,” Farouk Aliyu said. “So just because he did it to his party, you think we should condone doing it to our party? No, we will not condone it. Certainly, we will not.”
The warning is blunt. Farouk Aliyu framed the issue as party discipline rather than a personal vendetta. “I am not personally attacking Wike as a person, no,” Farouk Aliyu said. The choice of words leaves little room for a public slanging match between an APC office holder and APC governors in the run-up to 2027.
Balance sits in the same interview. Farouk Aliyu praised Nyesom Wike’s work in the Federal Capital Territory and said he knew of no serious campaign against the ministerial appointment. “We are happy with him being a minister because I don’t think in this country there has ever been a minister of FCT that has done what Wike has done or is doing,” Farouk Aliyu said.
Farouk Aliyu added that Nyesom Wike had helped the APC in Rivers State and in the Federal Capital Territory at the last general election and that the FCT portfolio itself was a substantial political reward.
Farouk Aliyu still expected President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene. Farouk Aliyu said the president would speak to Nyesom Wike and to APC leaders and would tell them such disputes should not play out in public.
Rivalry, Farouk Aliyu conceded, was inevitable after a high-profile appointment.
Farouk Aliyu said he and many others were not among those unhappy that Nyesom Wike became minister.
The remarks follow a related signal from the Progressive Governors’ Forum.
Imo State Governor and forum chairman Hope Uzodimma said on Monday night that APC governors would not back any alliance that weakened President Bola Ahmed Tinubu or the party before 2027.
Opposition figures have, in the same season, talked up a national coalition against the president.
Nigerian parties have a long habit of absorbing big defectors and then discovering that old fights travel with them.
The Peoples Democratic Party spent years managing Nyesom Wike’s public wars with fellow members. Farouk Aliyu’s argument is that the APC need not repeat that spectacle.
Performance in the Federal Capital Territory, on this telling, is not a licence to fracture the governing party in public.
Whether President Bola Ahmed Tinubu draws that line remains the next test. For now Farouk Aliyu has drawn it on live television. The Farouk Wike crisis is no longer only a gossip item.
Also read: Rhodes-Vivour Says Yoruba Fluency Will Shape 2027 Campaign
It is a dispute about who may speak for the APC, and how loudly, before the 2027 campaign properly begins.
