The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has dismissed the presidential ambition of former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi, declaring that Nigerians will not give him a chance in the 2027 elections.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, Wike said Amaechi’s bid is doomed from the start and that even his new party, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), will not hand him the presidential ticket.
“He (Amaechi) knows he won’t get the ticket. I read that he said he knows the weaknesses of the president, so he knows how to defeat him, but he also knew the weaknesses of the president in 2022 when the president defeated him mercilessly in the primary.
“Nigerians know the last person they will give a ticket to because they know it (Amaechi’s bid) is dead on arrival,” Wike said.
Amaechi, who was Rivers State governor from 2007 to 2015, contested the 2022 All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary, where he came second to Bola Tinubu. In 2025, he left the APC for the ADC, positioning himself to contest the 2027 presidential election.
But Wike, his successor in Rivers and now a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) serving in Tinubu’s cabinet, questioned Amaechi’s credibility and capacity to lead, accusing him of lacking respect for the judiciary and the rule of law when he governed the oil-rich state.
The relationship between Wike and Amaechi, once political allies, has long turned frosty, with both men often trading jabs at each other in the public arena.
