In Naija politics, the ruling party is always the most dangerous place to be.

Not because of the opposition. Not because of the courts. Not because of public anger over petrol prices or darkness or dead generals.

Because of the people inside it.

The APC spent years watching the PDP tear itself apart from within. They studied it. They mocked it. They built their own coalition on the wreckage of that implosion and rode it all the way to Aso Rock in 2015.

Now, eleven years later, the APC is writing the same script. Different characters. Same plot.

And this week, the plot accelerated faster than anyone expected.

It Started With Defections That Brought Individual Ambitions Through The Door

The first mistake any ruling party makes when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant is believing that everyone joining it shares the same agenda.

Since 2023, the APC has absorbed governors, senators, ministers, local government chairmen, traditional ruler affiliates, and political structures from across the country. PDP members came in. Labour Party members came in. NNPP members came in. Even Enugu State's Governor Peter Mbah, who had just won the governorship on a PDP ticket, walked through the APC's door in October 2025.

Each entry brought something. Votes, structures, local networks, financial resources.

Each entry also brought something else.

Ambition. Personal, unresolved, ungovernable ambition.

When you have thirty-one governors under one party umbrella, you do not have thirty-one loyal foot soldiers. You have thirty-one political enterprises, each with its own calculation, each with its own 2027 or 2031 agenda, each watching the man at the top and asking: what is in this for me, and for how long?

That question is now being answered publicly, simultaneously, across multiple states and institutions. And the answers are not harmonious.

The Senate War Was The First Public Crack

Last week, in the red chambers of the National Assembly, Senate President Godswill Akpabio threatened to remove fellow APC senator Adams Oshiomhole from the Senate using procedural rules.

The confrontation erupted when Oshiomhole attempted to raise a point of order while Akpabio was reading the Votes and Proceedings from the previous sitting. Akpabio ruled him out of order, Chief Whip Tahir Monguno warned him to comply or face discipline, and Akpabio then delivered his famous line: "Oshiomhole, if you become unruly, we will use the rules to take you out of the Senate."

The trigger was the Senate's amendment of its Standing Orders to restrict eligibility for leadership positions to senators who had served at least two consecutive terms, effectively protecting Akpabio's Senate presidency from the incoming wave of outgoing governors planning to contest it in the 11th Assembly.

Oshiomhole went outside the chambers the next day and dropped a resignation demand on Akpabio's desk.

He said: "This rule has serious moral crisis. The Senate president became minority leader on his first term. He is now the one presiding and asking us to change those rules even those who have done one term cannot even contest. David Mark had the honour and privilege of serving as Senate president for eight years, not by playing by the rules. Those rules that enabled David Mark to preside for eight years, what happened to them? Why changing them now because he fears that more senators will be eligible which will broaden the competitive base. So he wants to soak it. If other people are afraid, I am not."

If other people are afraid, I am not.

The Senate then reversed the amendment within forty-eight hours, reopening the contest for leadership positions in the 11th National Assembly.

A Senate President who cannot protect his own amendments for two full days is not a Senate President who commands the room.

Then Gombe Showed That The Consensus Weapon Is Misfiring In The North

Governors across APC states have been using consensus arrangements to impose candidates and avoid open primaries that could embarrass them or produce unexpected results.

In Gombe, Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya used this method to install Jamilu Gwamna as the consensus governorship candidate for 2027.

He did not reckon with Professor Isa Ali Pantami.

Pantami described the process as a "coronation" that violates democratic principles. He said: "By God's truth, in terms of justice, what happened in Gombe State cannot be called a consensus. Consensus means that everyone agrees. First, everyone involved must personally agree to the outcome. Second, even those who are absent must have representatives acting on their behalf. Third, there must be an agreement which complies with the law, and none of these three conditions were fulfilled."

Pantami also alleged serious irregularities in the process: "We were given very short notice less than 20 hours. By the time we saw it and began preparations, it was already too late to attend. We even sent a written message requesting more time. The meeting was then moved to Sunday but no one informed us that a final decision would be made that day."

He then issued the most dramatic statement any APC aspirant has made against his own governor this election cycle: "I will challenge this injustice of Gombe APC governorship consensus even if I lose my life doing it. If it's direct primary, everybody knows, we will win. If there's no justice, I will fight it legally, a fight like never seen before in Nigeria."

Lose my life doing it. From an APC aspirant. Against an APC governor. In an APC state. Over an APC primary.

Pantami also formally submitted his governorship nomination form to the APC national headquarters despite the announced consensus arrangement. His legal team is already reviewing challenges within the APC membership database in Gombe. Former Gombe governor Senator Danjuma Goje and Senator Saidu Ahmed Alkali have also voiced rejection of the consensus outcome, creating a formidable bloc against the governor's preferred candidate.

Gombe is not alone. Rebels against consensus arrangements are springing up from different states across the country as aspirants who purchased nomination forms discover their governor has already decided the outcome of a primary that has not been held.

MURIC described the Gombe arrangement as a "kangaroo consensus" conducted clandestinely, hurriedly and illegally, demanding its annulment and noting that a valid consensus can only emerge where all cleared aspirants voluntarily provide written consent to step down. If even one refuses, the party must revert to a direct primary.

The APC's consensus tool is supposed to be the instrument through which Tinubu controls his thirty-one governors' states. But when aspirants of Pantami's national profile are publicly refusing to sign, threatening courts, and describing the process as a coronation, the tool is no longer working quietly.

The Elephant In The Room: N800 Billion, A Coup Attempt and Two APC Factions

And now for the story that makes everything else look like a warm-up act.

The Progressive Governors Forum, the body of all thirty-one APC governors that is supposed to be Tinubu's most powerful electoral machinery, has split into two warring factions.

On Thursday night May 7, 2026, a group of approximately twenty APC governors met at the Ogun Government Lodge in Abuja.

They resolved to remove Hope Uzodimma as PGF chairman and replace him with Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah. The meeting was confirmed by two APC governors who separately spoke to Premium Times. "If you are accused of impropriety, you should step down or render account," one governor said.

In a swift counter-move, eighteen other governors met behind closed doors at the Imo Lodge and passed a vote of confidence in Uzodimma. Those present included the governors of Ondo, Kaduna, Taraba, Sokoto, Ebonyi, Borno, Lagos, Kogi, Kano, Yobe, Kebbi, Benue and Jigawa states.

Two meetings. Two camps. One party. One night.

The faction trying to remove Uzodimma is led by Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, backed by Kwara State Governor Abdurrahman Abdurrazaq and several others. The faction protecting Uzodimma consists of eighteen governors who voted confidence in him.

The real reason behind this war is money. Sources told Sahara Reporters that APC governors had agreed to contribute to Tinubu's re-election campaign through monthly deductions from their Federation Account Allocation Committee allocations. Uzodimma, as PGF chairman, reportedly oversaw these funds estimated at over N800 billion. When other governors began asking for financial accountability, Uzodimma allegedly became evasive. The tensions this produced directly triggered the internal divisions within the PGF and are reportedly linked to broader concerns that preceded Finance Minister Wale Edun's removal from office.

N800 billion. In a campaign fund. With a chairman who would not give account.

This is not an ideological disagreement. This is not a policy dispute. This is a fight over who controls the money that is supposed to win Tinubu a second term.

Tinubu reportedly intervened while on a foreign visit, holding discussions with key governors involved in the dispute. Following the intervention, some funds were reportedly recovered and efforts were underway to account for remaining balances. The President was said to have expressed displeasure over the handling of the financial arrangements.

The Arewa Youth Forum Delivers a 48-Hour Ultimatum

Then this morning, the Arewa Youth Forum entered the fray and removed any pretence that this was being managed quietly.

The group accused Dapo Abiodun and Peter Mbah of sabotaging Tinubu's re-election. It stated: "Because these renegades could not break or manipulate Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, who is the current PGF chairman, they went for a soft target in Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State to set in motion machinery aimed at stopping Tinubu's re-election. Abiodun not only recruited another soft target, Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State, to work against his own brother, they also found willing tools among a few governors. They hastily announced the removal of Uzodimma because they saw him as an impediment to their perfidious plot."

The group then issued a 48-hour ultimatum, warning: "We use this opportunity to warn them to desist from this plot. We are giving them 48 hours to apologise to President Tinubu, the PGF and its chairman Senator Hope Uzodimma, and the APC for the ill-advised aborted palace coup, failing which we shall mobilise Nigerian youths against them."

An aborted palace coup. Against the PGF chairman. Inside the ruling party. Fourteen months before the presidential election.

Let that sit for a moment.

The APC's most powerful internal machinery, the body that is supposed to coordinate the re-election campaign of the president it has thirty-one governors behind, is being described by a major northern youth group as having nearly been overthrown in a palace coup led by two of its own members.

Is Tinubu Still In Control?

This is the question that matters.

On the surface, the answer appears to still be yes. The eighteen governors who passed a vote of confidence in Uzodimma outnumber the Abiodun camp. The Senate amended its rules and reversed them within forty-eight hours, showing that the chamber can still be redirected from Aso Rock when needed. Tinubu personally intervened in the PGF financial dispute while abroad and reportedly recovered some funds.

These are signs of a president who still has enough political weight to manage competing interests.

But look beneath the surface.

The PGF fight was not about ideology. It was about N800 billion in campaign money with no accountability. A Finance Minister was removed in circumstances partially linked to the same financial tensions. A northern senator from his own party threatened the Senate president with a resignation demand on national television. A former federal minister is threatening to fight an APC governorship primary to his last breath. And an Arewa youth group is threatening to mobilise Nigerian youths against two APC governors who are supposedly Tinubu's own allies.

None of this happens in a party where the leader is fully in command.

Sources indicate that tensions within the governors' forum deepened over leadership style and internal control of resources, with some governors accusing Uzodimma of exerting excessive influence over the PGF structure at the expense of the broader political process.

When the men who are supposed to fund and coordinate your re-election are fighting about who controls the money and threatening each other with ultimatums, you do not have a campaign structure.

You have a liability.

Is This The Beginning of The End For APC?

Here is the honest assessment.

The APC has survived worse. Saraki's rebellion of 2018. El-Rufai and Malami's exit. The Buhari-Tinubu tension before the 2023 primary. None of those destroyed the party because the structural advantages held: federal resources, incumbent presidency, governors controlling local government machinery.

Those structural advantages are still in place.

But the APC of 2026 is not the lean, hungry coalition machine of 2015. It is a swollen, success-bloated behemoth that absorbed everyone who wanted a piece of power and is now discovering that a party of all ambitions is a party of no common purpose.

Pantami versus his governor in Gombe. Oshiomhole versus Akpabio in the Senate. Abiodun versus Uzodimma in the PGF. Individual senators fighting governors for their own 2027 tickets. A campaign fund of N800 billion that nobody will account for.

The opposition, for all its chaos, at least has the excuse of being the weaker party fighting a stronger one. What is the APC's excuse for fighting itself?

In Naija politics, a party that cannot hold its own campaign fund accountable, cannot complete a Senate standing rules amendment for forty-eight hours, and requires an Arewa youth ultimatum to manage a governors' quarrel, is a party that is surviving on momentum and name recognition rather than discipline and unity.

Tinubu's masterstroke has always been his ability to play competing interests against each other while positioning himself as the indispensable mediator. He used it to win 2023. He used it to maintain control through 2024 and 2025.

The question for 2027 is whether the number of competing interests inside his own party has now exceeded what even a political grandmaster can manage simultaneously.

The walls are not collapsing yet. But they are shaking.

And in Naija politics, when the walls of a ruling party shake this loudly, fourteen months before a presidential election, even the most loyal voter starts looking for the exits.

What do you think? Is the APC's internal implosion reaching a point where it threatens Tinubu's second term more than any opposition party? And with N800 billion in campaign funds apparently unaccounted for inside the PGF, who is really running the ruling party's 2027 machinery? Drop your thoughts in the comments section. Naija politics just handed us the most explosive ruling party crisis since 2018 and it is happening right before our eyes.