Reported by Simon Daniel Yusuph l Journalist at Weng Global
Federal Capital Territory Minister and former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike has offered a fresh account of the political strategy adopted by the defunct G5 governors during Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, saying the group deliberately prevented Labour Party candidate Peter Obi from winning Rivers State while allowing him to gain ground in some other South-South states.
Wike’s comments have renewed scrutiny of the disputed Rivers presidential result, particularly because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner, while subsequent reporting based on polling-unit result sheets uploaded to INEC’s Results Viewing Portal raised questions about the figures from Obio-Akpor Local Government Area.
The new account also sheds light on the G5 governors’ opposition to the presidential candidacy of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and their calculations around the distribution of votes in the South-South.
Wike Explains the G5 Strategy
Wike made the comments during an interview on TVC’s Journalists’ Hangout in September 2026 while discussing the 2023 election and the political position of the G5 governors.
According to Wike, the group considered Atiku a greater political threat in the South-South because of the PDP’s traditional strength in the region.
He said the strategy was to allow Obi, who contested the election on the Labour Party platform, to benefit from votes in some areas rather than allow those votes to go to Atiku.
Wike specifically cited Edo and Cross River as examples where, according to his account, the strategy worked in Obi’s favour. Punch reported that Wike said the G5 governors considered the PDP strong in those states and sought to prevent Atiku from benefiting from that strength.
The G5 comprised Wike, Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, former Benue Governor Samuel Ortom, former Abia Governor Okezie Ikpeazu and former Enugu Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
The governors had opposed Atiku’s emergence as the PDP’s 2023 presidential candidate and demanded that the party’s presidential ticket be shifted to the South after Muhammadu Buhari’s two terms in office.
Why Rivers Was Treated Differently
Wike said Rivers was an exception to the strategy used in other parts of the South-South.
He explained that the G5 believed an Obi victory in Rivers would carry political implications beyond the immediate election result.
Wike said the group decided that Obi should not win the state and claimed that they stopped such an outcome because it could “send a signal” that had wider political implications. His remarks were reported by Punch, Voice of Nigeria and TVC News.
The statement is significant because Rivers ultimately produced a result that gave Tinubu 231,591 votes, Obi 175,071 and Atiku 88,468, according to the figures declared by INEC. Tinubu therefore finished ahead of Obi by 56,520 votes in the state.
Wike was governor of Rivers when the presidential election took place and had publicly supported Tinubu despite remaining a PDP member at the time.
What the Official Rivers Result Shows
The officially declared result placed Tinubu first in Rivers, followed by Obi and Atiku.
Across the state’s 23 local government areas, Tinubu won 14, Obi won five and Atiku won four, according to reporting based on the INEC declaration.
The result was notable because Obi had initially maintained a substantial lead during the collation of results from the state.
Before the final results from Obio-Akpor and another outstanding local government were incorporated, reports showed Obi ahead of Tinubu by more than 20,000 votes.
The final figures changed significantly after the Obio-Akpor result was announced.
The Obio-Akpor Dispute
The controversy surrounding Rivers has centred particularly on Obio-Akpor, Wike’s home local government area.
Premium Times reported in September 2026 that it reviewed presidential election results uploaded to INEC’s Results Viewing Portal and found a major discrepancy between the declared Obio-Akpor figures and results from polling units available on the portal.
According to the newspaper’s review, INEC’s declared figures gave Tinubu 80,239 votes in Obio-Akpor against 3,829 for Obi.
However, Premium Times said its tally of results from 1,116 of the area’s 1,211 polling units produced a substantially different picture: 73,311 votes for Obi and 17,158 for Tinubu. The reviewed polling units represented about 94.13 per cent of the local government’s polling units.
The newspaper also reported apparent alterations and mutilations on some uploaded result sheets. It cautioned, however, that some results were missing, illegible or improperly uploaded and that it could not independently tally every polling unit.
Those qualifications are important. The review does not by itself establish how every vote in Rivers was cast or prove who legally won the state.
Wike Challenges Obi Supporters
Against that background, Wike has separately challenged supporters of Peter Obi to produce the official result sheet on which they base the claim that Obi won Rivers.
During the TVC interview, Wike questioned why Obi’s supporters did not establish their claim during the legal proceedings challenging the 2023 presidential election.
He argued that social-media assessments or results from selected polling units could not determine the winner of a state containing 23 local government areas and thousands of polling units.
The officially declared INEC result remains that Tinubu won Rivers.
At the same time, the polling-unit discrepancies reported by Premium Times provide a documented basis for continued questions about how some of the figures were collated and transmitted. The two issues are therefore distinct: the officially declared result and questions raised by subsequent examination of available polling-unit documents.
What Wike Says About Atiku
Wike’s latest explanation also provides additional context about the G5’s relationship with Atiku.
The former Rivers governor said the governors viewed Atiku as the principal political threat in the South-South because the PDP had considerable support in the region.
According to Wike’s account, allowing Obi to gain votes in states such as Edo and Cross River was a way of reducing the number of votes that could otherwise have gone to Atiku. Punch reported that Wike explicitly described this as the group’s strategy during the 2023 election.
The comments reinforce the extent to which the G5’s internal PDP dispute shaped the political calculations of several governors during the presidential election.
They also demonstrate that the group’s actions were not simply about supporting or opposing one presidential candidate across every state. Wike’s account describes different calculations for different states based on the political consequences the governors anticipated.
Political Strategy and the Election Result
Wike has rejected the suggestion that his description of the G5 strategy amounts to an admission that he personally rigged the election.
Voice of Nigeria reported that Wike denied manipulating election results and argued that political strategy should not be equated with electoral rigging. He maintained that political actors could mobilise voters and shape political outcomes without directly altering result sheets.
That distinction is central to the controversy.
Political campaigning, endorsements, voter mobilisation and strategic alliances are part of electoral competition. Altering official results or interfering with the counting of votes would constitute a different matter and would require evidence establishing such conduct.
Wike’s latest remarks establish his account of the political strategy adopted by the G5. They do not, on their own, establish whether any electoral result was unlawfully altered.
Why the New Account Matters
The significance of Wike’s remarks lies partly in their timing and partly in the continuing dispute over Rivers’ 2023 presidential result.
For years, the political debate has focused on whether Obi actually won Rivers and whether the final result reflected the votes cast at polling units.
The newly reported comments add another layer because Wike is now explicitly describing a deliberate political decision to prevent an Obi victory in Rivers.
That statement does not resolve the separate question of whether the official results accurately reflected polling-unit votes. But it provides additional information about the political calculations of one of the central actors in the state’s 2023 election.
It also offers further context for understanding why the G5 governors opposed Atiku while simultaneously refusing to support Obi uniformly across the South-South.
The Wider 2027 Context
Wike’s comments come as Nigeria’s political actors increasingly position themselves ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The FCT minister has continued to support President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid, while Atiku and Obi remain prominent figures in discussions about the opposition landscape.
Wike has also argued that the political circumstances of 2027 will differ from those of 2023. TVC reported that he questioned the use of rally crowds and social-media activity as measures of electoral strength, arguing that political support must be assessed through broader structures and voting patterns.
His latest account of the G5 therefore has both historical and contemporary relevance: it explains his version of what happened in 2023 while also revealing how he views political strategy ahead of the next presidential contest.
For voters and political observers, however, the 2023 Rivers controversy remains a question that requires separating three different issues: the result officially declared by INEC, the evidence contained in polling-unit result documents, and the political strategies employed by party leaders and governors.
Weng Global – stories beyond borders
Sources
- Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) — 2023 presidential election results
- Premium Times — reporting and review of Rivers State and Obio-Akpor polling-unit results
- Punch Newspapers — Wike’s account of the G5 strategy during the 2023 election
- Voice of Nigeria — Wike’s comments on the G5 strategy and allegations of electoral manipulation
- TVC News — interview coverage of Wike’s comments on the 2023 election
