Ondo APC: Wike’s Rainbow Coalition has no place in our structure — Adegbonmire

The growing dispute over the political relevance of the Rainbow Coalition has reached Ondo State, with Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire distancing the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the platform associated with Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike.

Adegbonmire, who represents Ondo Central Senatorial District and chairs the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, said the coalition had no place within APC structures in Ondo State or elsewhere.

He spoke in Akure after arriving in the state, where supporters organised a reception for him.

The senator urged APC members not to identify with the coalition, describing participation in an arrangement that could work against official APC candidates as an anti-party activity ahead of the 2027 elections.

“The political alliance linked to Wike has no place in the All Progressives Congress,” Adegbonmire said.

His comments come amid an increasingly public disagreement between Wike and APC governors over the coalition’s role in the 2027 elections.

The Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), led by Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma, recently declared that APC governors would neither participate in nor endorse political arrangements capable of weakening the party, undermining President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid or adversely affecting APC candidates.

Wike, however, has maintained that the Rainbow Coalition is a cross-party platform focused specifically on mobilising support for Tinubu’s re-election and is not an APC structure. He has also said the coalition does not seek to prevent other parties from fielding candidates for governorship, National Assembly and state assembly elections.

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That position has created a fault line over whether support for Tinubu at the presidential level can coexist with support for non-APC candidates in other contests.

Adegbonmire, meanwhile, said he was unaware of any aggrieved APC member in Ondo State participating in the Rainbow Coalition.

“I don’t know about any aggrieved member that is in Rainbow Coalition,” he said, adding that he believed APC members remained committed to the party.

He also played down reports of divisions within the Ondo APC following its recent primaries, describing post-primary disagreements as normal in political parties.

The latest development follows a separate statement by the Ondo APC leadership distancing the state chapter from the Rainbow Coalition and reaffirming support for all official APC candidates in the 2027 elections.

The controversy has therefore shifted from a disagreement involving Wike and APC governors at the national level to a wider debate over party loyalty and campaign structures at the state level.

While Wike’s supporters present the coalition as a broader platform for securing Tinubu’s second-term bid, APC leaders in several states have insisted that their electoral machinery must remain centred on candidates nominated by the ruling party.

For Ondo APC, Adegbonmire’s intervention reinforces the position that the party’s structures and candidates should remain the primary vehicles for its 2027 campaigns.