Wike dismisses Atiku as 2027 election leading candidate

FCT Minister Nyesom Wike has dismissed the suggestion that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is among the leading contenders for Nigeria's presidency in 2027, arguing that the race currently has only one clear front-runner: President Bola Tinubu.

Wike made the statement in Abuja while reacting to Atiku's latest position on the fuel subsidy, after the former vice president said he would not scrap the subsidy if elected president.

Speaking during a Facebook Live session, Atiku argued that the subsidy regime had been deeply compromised by fraud and challenged the Federal Government to disclose how much it had saved since subsidy removal and how the funds had been spent.

But Wike rejected both Atiku's political standing and his position on the subsidy.

“I disagree that Atiku is one of the leading presidential candidates. We have only one leading candidate, and that is Bola Tinubu.”

The FCT minister also questioned whether Atiku's position on fuel subsidy represented a genuine policy shift or simply an attempt to appeal to voters ahead of the 2027 election.

‘A voodoo economist’

Wike, a former governor of Rivers State and one of the prominent figures who backed Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election, took a particularly sharp swipe at Atiku's economic credentials.

“Atiku, who is a voodoo economist, will say anything just to be president. This was a man who was going to remove the fuel subsidy in 2022.”

He then challenged the former vice president to explain the apparent change in position.

“Now, in 2026, he is not going to remove the fuel subsidy. Is he going back to the fraud which he alleged the fuel subsidy was? We should be consistent in what we send to our people.”

Atiku's latest position comes after years of controversy over petrol subsidy policy. President Tinubu removed the subsidy shortly after taking office in May 2023, a decision that triggered a sharp increase in petrol prices and significantly altered the country's fiscal and economic landscape.

Atiku has since argued that the problem was not simply the subsidy itself but the corruption and opacity surrounding the system.

Wike questions opposition's strength

Beyond the fuel subsidy debate, Wike used the opportunity to assess the opposition's chances in 2027—and declared that, in his view, the election is already tilting decisively in Tinubu's favour.

“I have people who really deserve elections, and why did I say so? Elections are not merely about parties presenting their candidates.”

He added: “2027 is gone because we don’t have any opposition that wants to wrestle power from the government.”

The remark comes as opposition figures attempt to consolidate around the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which has attracted several prominent politicians ahead of the next presidential election.

Atiku has emerged as the ADC's presidential candidate, while the coalition backing the party has presented itself as a major challenger to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Wike's assessment is markedly different. Rather than viewing the ADC alliance as a credible threat to Tinubu, he argues that the opposition lacks the cohesion and political machinery required to dislodge the incumbent.

A familiar political fault line

Wike's latest attack also highlights the increasingly bitter political divide between him and Atiku.

The two men were on opposite sides of a major dispute within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2023 election, when Wike and four other PDP governors refused to support Atiku's presidential campaign.

Wike ultimately backed Tinubu, who defeated Atiku and Labour Party candidate Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential election.

With 2027 approaching, the former allies-turned-rivals are once again positioning themselves on opposite sides of the political battlefield.

For Atiku, the argument is that Nigerians deserve an alternative to the current administration.

For Wike, the answer is already settled: Tinubu remains the man to beat.