As Nigeria moves closer to the 2027 general election, one political figure continues to redefine the boundaries of party loyalty and political influence: Nyesom Wike. From leading the G5 governors’ revolt within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to championing a proposed Rainbow Coalition in support of President Bola Tinubu, Wike’s politics has consistently revolved around one objective—remaining influential regardless of party lines.

His latest disagreement with governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is therefore more than an ordinary political quarrel. It reflects a deeper contest over who controls the political machinery surrounding the president and how loyalty should be organised ahead of a presidential election.

The APC Governors’ Forum recently rejected any political arrangement capable of creating parallel campaign structures outside the party. The governors insisted that support for President Tinubu should flow through the APC and its candidates at every level.

Wike responded by dismissing claims that he sought an alliance with the governors. According to him, the proposed Rainbow Coalition is not an alternative political party but a broader network of politicians from different platforms united behind Tinubu’s re-election.

That distinction lies at the heart of the controversy. Wike argues that a politician can remain a member of one party while supporting another party’s presidential candidate without abandoning participation in governorship, National Assembly or state assembly elections through his own platform.

For the APC governors, however, presidential and legislative elections are inseparable. Their concern is that mobilising support for Tinubu outside the formal APC structure could weaken the party’s candidates in other contests.

To understand the Rainbow Coalition, it is necessary to revisit the events of 2022.

Wike emerged as one of five PDP governors who formed the G5, also known as the Integrity Group, after former Vice President Atiku Abubakar secured the PDP presidential ticket. The governors demanded internal reforms, including the resignation of then National Chairman Iyorchia Ayu, and eventually withheld support from Atiku’s campaign.

The G5 demonstrated that party membership did not automatically determine presidential loyalty. Its members remained PDP governors while adopting different positions during the presidential election.

The Rainbow Coalition appears to extend that philosophy beyond the PDP. Rather than resisting a party from within, Wike is attempting to build a cross-party political network around an incumbent president while allowing participants to retain their separate political identities.

The disagreement is less about Tinubu and more about political structure.

State governors possess institutional authority through their control of party organisations and government machinery within their states. Wike, by contrast, relies on personal political networks developed over decades in Rivers State and reinforced by his current position as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.

His argument is provocative: political influence does not necessarily belong to whoever controls party structures, but to whoever can mobilise voters.

That proposition challenges the traditional hierarchy of party politics. If a minister can independently organise electoral support for a president outside the APC, the governors inevitably lose part of their leverage.

No state illustrates Wike’s influence better than Rivers.

His prolonged political conflict with Governor Siminalayi Fubara eventually escalated into a constitutional crisis that prompted President Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers in March 2025.

Whether viewed as political intervention or constitutional necessity, the episode demonstrated the extraordinary significance of Wike’s political structure within Rivers.

Now, by publicly declaring his intention to deliver both Rivers State and the FCT for Tinubu in 2027, Wike has reopened questions about who truly commands the electoral machinery in those territories—the APC or his own political network.

President Tinubu occupies a delicate position.

On one hand, Wike offers access to political constituencies beyond the APC. On the other, the APC governors remain indispensable because they control the governing party’s formal structures across the states.

The president therefore has every incentive to prevent the disagreement from becoming a permanent rupture. Rather than choosing between Wike and the governors, his challenge may be finding a way to make both politically useful without allowing competing structures to undermine one another.

The Rainbow Coalition also raises broader questions about the nature of Nigerian democracy.

Can a politician remain in the PDP while openly campaigning for an APC president? Constitutionally, the answer is largely political rather than legal. Elections for president, governor and legislature are separate contests, and voters are free to split their ballots among different parties.

The difficulty lies in party discipline. To APC leaders, supporting Tinubu should naturally include supporting APC candidates across the ballot. To Wike, presidential loyalty is a personal political choice that does not require abandoning his party’s legislative ambitions.

The journey from G5 to Rainbow Coalition reflects an evolution rather than a contradiction.

The G5 was an internal resistance movement designed to reshape the PDP’s presidential direction. The Rainbow Coalition seeks to mobilise support beyond party boundaries while preserving the independence of participating politicians.

Whether the coalition becomes a durable political force will depend on organisation, personalities, candidate selection and the willingness of the APC leadership to accommodate an influential ally operating outside its formal campaign structure.

For now, the disagreement has revealed a fundamental question that could define the 2027 election: Does political loyalty belong primarily to the party, the presidential candidate, or the individual politician?

The answer may ultimately determine not only Wike’s political future, but also the evolving architecture of power around President Tinubu as Nigeria heads into another defining electoral cycle.

By Victor Ojelabi

The Rotary Club of Ikoyi Metro, led by President Rotarian Emeka Nwosu, will begin a four-day vision and hearing screening for Primary One pupils across 10 public primary schools in Lagos Island, Lagos State, on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, under a Rotary International Global Grant project chaired by Rotarian Oladimeji Olatunji-Audu for the club.

Also read: From Lagos to Germany: How Rotary Youth Exchange Transformed Arnold Faranpojo

The Rotary Ikoyi Metro screening, which runs until Friday, September 25, will commence at 9 a.m. daily, with Holy Cross Cathedral Primary School, Campus, serving as the venue.

The Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board has formally approved the exercise for pupils in the 10 selected schools within the Lagos Island Local Government Education Authority.

In its September 9 approval, LASUBEB described the intervention as a “noble gesture” complementing the Lagos State Government’s efforts to improve basic education.

The participating schools are Holy Cross Cathedral Primary School, Ade Oshodi Primary School, Anglican Girls Primary School, Christ Cathedral Primary School, and Ebute Elefun Primary School.

Others include Edward Blyden Memorial School, St. David Primary School, St. Mary Convent School, St. Peter Primary School and Tinubu Methodist Primary School.

Nwosu said the intervention was built around a simple concern: children experiencing difficulties in the classroom should not be written off before possible health-related causes are investigated.

“Sometimes, what looks like a learning problem may simply be a child struggling to see the board clearly or hear what the teacher is saying. Through this project, we want to identify those challenges early and give affected children the opportunity to learn and thrive alongside their peers,” Nwosu said.

The project is being implemented in partnership with other Rotary clubs through the Rotary International Global Grant mechanism, combining resources and expertise to address preventable vision and hearing difficulties among schoolchildren.

The cub’s project chairman said the initiative was designed to go beyond simply identifying pupils with difficulties.

“Screening is only meaningful when it leads to action. Our objective is to identify children who require attention early enough and ensure that those who need further intervention are appropriately supported. A child’s ability to see and hear properly can make a remarkable difference to the child’s confidence and performance in school,” Olatunji-Audu said.

The Lagos Island exercise follows an earlier phase of the wider Global Grant project launched in July 2026, when hundreds of pupils from public primary schools in the Ikoyi-Obalende area underwent vision and hearing screening.

The broader intervention has brought together Rotary clubs and partners in Nigeria and overseas.

The World Health Organization has also identified vision and hearing as important to children’s development and education, noting that unaddressed sensory impairments can have significant consequences for school-age children.

Also read: From Lagos to Germany: How Rotary Youth Exchange Transformed Arnold Faranpojo

For Ikoyi Metro, the four-day intervention therefore carries a powerful message beyond the medical screenings: before concluding that a young pupil is struggling to learn, it may be necessary to establish whether that child can clearly see the lesson and hear the teacher.

By Victor Ojelabi,

The Rotary Foundation has recognised the polio eradication efforts of Rotary International District 9112 under Immediate Past District Governor Lanre Adedoyin, following the District’s transfer of District Designated Funds to the PolioPlus Fund during the 2025 to 2026 Rotary year, a contribution acknowledged recently, as part of the global funding effort to protect children from the disease.

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The recognition brings a fitting international dimension to a Rotary year in which Adedoyin, a lawyer and member of the Rotary Club of Surulere South, repeatedly placed polio eradication among District 9112’s major humanitarian priorities across Lagos and Ogun states.

In a message addressed to District 9112, The Rotary Foundation thanked the District for committing its District Designated Funds to the campaign, saying the collective support from Rotary districts helped the organisation reach its fundraising target and secure matching funds that translate into US$150 million for polio eradication.

“Your support helped Rotary reach our goal and secure the matching funds that translate into US$150 million toward eradicating polio,” the Foundation said.

The money has consequences far beyond the balance sheet.

According to the Foundation, polio funding supports frontline workers taking vaccines into remote communities, environmental surveillance capable of detecting the virus in wastewater and programmes designed to interrupt transmission in affected areas.

IPDG Lanre Adedoyin with wife at a Rotary event recently

The Foundation said the continuing effort was particularly important in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the only two countries where wild poliovirus remains endemic.

That assessment is consistent with Rotary International’s latest account of the global campaign.

Rotary says its partnership with the Gates Foundation generates up to US$150 million annually for polio eradication, with Rotary raising US$50 million and the Foundation providing a two-to-one match.

The money supports vaccine procurement, social mobilisation, outbreak response, surveillance and other operational requirements.

Rotary’s involvement stretches back decades. Its first polio vaccination project began in the Philippines in 1979, and the organisation became a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. Since then, global polio cases have fallen by 99.9 per cent.

For Nigeria, the story carries particular resonance.

The country recorded its last case of wild poliovirus in Borno State in August 2016.

Four years later, the World Health Organisation African Region was formally certified free of wild poliovirus, leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan as the remaining countries with endemic transmission.

That historic achievement, however, did not mean the end of the polio challenge in Nigeria.

Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus can still emerge in communities with low immunisation coverage, making vaccination and surveillance essential even in countries that have eliminated wild poliovirus.

It was against that backdrop that the IPDG’s polio drive developed during the 2025 to 2026 Rotary year.

Adedoyin, who became the second District Governor of District 9112 following the division of the former District 9110, had signalled early in his tenure that healthcare would remain a central part of the District’s service programme.

His installation in Lagos in July 2025 marked the beginning of a year that subsequently combined fundraising with grassroots advocacy and support for health workers.

By September 2025, the District had held a PolioPlus seminar at which Adedoyin warned against complacency simply because wild poliovirus had disappeared from Nigeria. District records show that the campaign remained prominent in its programme in the months that followed.

In October, Districts 9111 and 9112 took the End Polio Now message beyond conventional conference halls with a joint train journey from Lagos to Abeokuta.

Led by Adedoyin and then District 9111 Governor Henry Akinyele, alongside Nigeria National PolioPlus Committee Chairman Joshua Hassan and other Rotary leaders, the initiative turned the train journey into a public awareness campaign for polio eradication.

District 9112 also took the message to communities in Ogun State, including a roughly 10-kilometre Keep Polio @ Zero awareness walk in Sagamu aimed particularly at encouraging parents and guardians to ensure that children receive their vaccinations.

In Lagos, the campaign moved from advocacy to practical support.

District 9112 donated 100 pairs of rain boots and 200 raincoats to the Lagos State Primary Health Care Board in October 2025 to assist health personnel working on polio eradication during the rainy season. The intervention was valued at about ₦1.6 million.

Adedoyin made the District’s position clear at the presentation.

“Our commitment to ending polio is absolute,” Adedoyin said. “We will continue working with the Lagos State Government and our partners until polio is completely wiped out.”

Another significant moment came towards the end of his tenure.

In June 2026, District 9112 announced that it had raised US$13,000 through the World’s Greatest Meal initiative for The Rotary Foundation’s PolioPlus Fund.

The contribution was described by World’s Greatest Meal Committee Chairman Tokunbo Opanubi as one of the highest recorded by the District through the initiative.

The US$13,000 contribution is separate from the District Designated Funds now acknowledged by The Rotary Foundation.

Together, however, the initiatives illustrate the different channels through which District 9112 supported the global eradication campaign during Adedoyin’s tenure.

District Designated Funds form part of The Rotary Foundation’s funding system and allow Rotary districts to direct portions of available Foundation resources towards eligible programmes.

PolioPlus is one of the avenues through which districts can deploy such resources in support of Rotary’s eradication objective.

The Foundation’s latest acknowledgement therefore adds another layer to District 9112’s polio record for the 2025 to 2026 year.

It also demonstrates the multiplier effect behind Rotary’s funding model.

A contribution originating from clubs and districts can ultimately support a much larger global pool used for vaccines, surveillance, community mobilisation and the difficult task of reaching children in areas affected by conflict, insecurity or geographical isolation.

The stakes remain considerable.

Polio is a potentially fatal infectious disease that primarily affects young children and can invade the nervous system, causing irreversible paralysis.

Although its global footprint has been reduced dramatically, Rotary cautions that eradication requires sustained vaccination and surveillance until transmission has been stopped everywhere.

The Foundation’s message to District 9112 captured that unfinished mission.

It thanked the District for supporting the PolioPlus Fund and helping move the world closer to the point where “no child is threatened by this disease ever again”.

For Adedoyin, who handed over the governorship of District 9112 at the end of the 2025 to 2026 Rotary year, the recognition offers a powerful postscript to a year in which the District’s contribution was measured not only in fundraising figures, but also in public advocacy, community mobilisation and support for those working closest to vulnerable children.

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And for District 9112, the acknowledgement connects a local Rotary story from Lagos and Ogun states to a much larger global ambition: ensuring that the final cases of polio become part of history rather than the beginning of another outbreak.