Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, has said he would become the first target should President Bola Tinubu lose the 2027 presidential election to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi.

Wike, who has made his support for Tinubu’s re-election a central feature of his current political activities despite remaining a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said he was fully aware of the consequences of the position he had taken.

Speaking during a media chat monitored by our correspondent, the minister said the intensity of his support for Tinubu had already made him a prominent target of his political opponents.

“I will be the first politician that I think they will come after. I will be the first politician. I know they will come for my head,” he said.

Wike said the possibility of political consequences had not weakened his resolve to campaign for the president, insisting that he had no regrets about openly identifying with Tinubu.

Rather than retreating from the political contest, the minister said he remained focused on ensuring the president secures another term in office.

“Each day I sleep, I am thinking about the president’s reelection. When I am eating, I think about the president’s reelection. Everything I am doing now is about the president’s reelection,” he stated.

The former Rivers State governor said the criticism directed at him over his political position had been unusually intense.

But he maintained that he was not concerned about the names he had been called or the opinions expressed by his critics.

“I don’t see where anybody in this country today has been called names the way my name has been. I am not bothered about people who say their [own] thing. My business is, like I said, I am going to support Mr President,” he declared.

Wike’s position has placed him in an unusual political situation ahead of the 2027 election.

Although he remains in the PDP, he is backing Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, against opposition figures including Atiku and Obi.

His stance has also fuelled political disagreements within the PDP, particularly as efforts to construct a broad opposition platform for the 2027 election continue.

Atiku and Obi, who contested the 2023 presidential election on the platforms of the PDP and Labour Party respectively, are now associated with the emerging opposition realignment around the African Democratic Congress ADC.

For Wike, however, the political consequences of his choice are secondary to the objective he has set for himself.

He said he understood that a Tinubu defeat could expose him to reprisals from political opponents but insisted that such concerns would not change his decision to campaign for the president.

The minister’s comments underline the extent to which he has tied his current political engagement to Tinubu’s re-election bid, even as his continued membership of the PDP leaves him outside the president’s APC.

Wike has repeatedly maintained that he has never concealed his political intentions, arguing that his support for Tinubu should therefore not come as a surprise to anyone. (Daily Trust)