Tuesday, October 27, 2026 will remain significant for some time to come in the political life of Rivers State following the formal launch at the Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt, of the much-hyped Rainbow Coalition, a cross-party political platform cobbled by Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Given its unpretentious mission to dominate the politics of the hydrocarbon-rich Rivers State, along with some other states, the dispensation has raised concerns in several quarters due to its antecedents, and the unrelenting war of attrition that came to serve as the hallmark of its principal sponsor, against real and perceived opposition.
The high point of the attrition campaign was the capitulation and volte-face adopted for peace to reign by the Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara, who, in spite of being a prime victim, has been forced to align with and endorse the coalition.
Among the trending questions now is what implications the ongoing coalition drama have for the future of the state, given the fact that the Rainbow Coalition is, in essence, the imposition of an incongruous political platform, seen by not a few observers as the fourth term agenda for Wike, which is being imposed on the disparate groups that make up the state.
The argument for this consideration draws from Wike’s proclivities in respect of the governorship of Rivers State. He had served two terms as governor of the state between 2015 and 2023, which qualified as first and second terms. Restricted by the constitution to serve a third term, he had manipulated Fubara into office, with the intention that the latter would remain a mere placeholder while he exercised real power. It was the reluctance of Fubara to act the placeholder that spawned the crisis between them; hence the Fubara tenure is widely seen as Wike’s troubled third term by proxy.
Now, courtesy of the Rainbow Coalition, Wike is positioning governorship candidates, namely, Kingsley Chinda of the APC and Sam Ejekwu of the PDP, both of whom are from his Ikwerre ethnic group, to ensure that one of them wins to serve as the enabler of his fourth term agenda.
With respect to the evolution of the Rainbow Coalition, not a few have rightly or otherwise likened its circumstances to the fable of the fox that lost its tail in a fight, only to gather the rest of the pack to advocate a new wisdom in living without a tail. In the case of the sympathisers of the Rainbow Coalition as presently constituted, what may be missing is the capacity for discretion and appreciation of political history, along with imperative for balance of interests among the constituent groups in the state.
The political history of Rivers State posits that ethnic harmony among the constituent groups is guaranteed with the rotation of the office of governor between the upland and riverine components of the state: which the Rainbow Coalition dispensation has come to disrupt.
Meanwhile, against the facade of seeming widespread acceptance of the Rainbow Coalition by some communities in Rivers State rages a growing storm of reservations over its tendency of assimilating opposition actors, often without as much as any consultation with their constituencies.
With respect to the mission of the Coalition, it needs to be recalled that it was cobbled by Wike to fulfill the promise of a consolidation of the Rivers State votes for Tinubu’s re-election gambit. Hence, hardly do considerations about the development challenges of Rivers State feature in the calculus and conversations of the coalition.
This situation renders it a retrogressive dispensation that offers any prospects of progress to the state. As is also widely appreciated, the history of the Rainbow Coalition situates it as the consolidation of Wike’s his grip on the state as a base for an eventual return to another contest for the nation’s presidency.
Easy to recall is Wike’s failed bid for the Presidency in 2022 and his vengeful fight-back against the PDP, as well as later joining of forces with the then APC candidate Bola Tinubu. In the light of the foregoing, the political future of Rivers State stands at a cross roads. In one direction lies the portends of allowing the future to be determined through the political alchemy of Wike, which features his sole prerogative of determining who governs the state now and in the future.
The demerit of this situation lies in the wisdom of the fact that no individual is altruistic enough to be entrusted with absolute political power over a group. And that includes Wike. Against the backdrop of the merit of political representation being the advocacy by a representative for the betterment of his or her constituency, the circumstances of a bandwagon declaration of subservience to single potentate by a generation of political elite, even without consultation, evokes concerns of possible manipulation.
To accentuate the incongruity of the Rainbow Coalition in the political firmament of Rivers State is the African proverb which states that only a child with compromised appreciation of his or her ancestry points to the parents’ grave with the left hand. Hardly is the message here a mystery to the affected. In the final analysis, therefore, the future of the state will be better served with an unfettered political space, which has to be spawned now with the forthcoming 2027 general polls. This is where and why the Wike dispensation through the Rainbow Coalition has shot itself in the foot with its inclination towards restricting the democratic space.