In Naija politics, godfathers are not created equal.

Some godfathers flex their power quietly, pulling strings from shadow, nudging outcomes without ever appearing on camera. Others operate loudly, making threats on podiums, calling press conferences, daring their targets to test them.

Nyesom Wike is neither of those.

Wike is the category that Nigerian political science has no clean language for. He is the godfather who sits inside the Federal Executive Council of the same government he is using to destroy his own godson. The minister who attends cabinet meetings with Tinubu on Mondays and dismantles Fubara's political future on Tuesdays. The man who took a sitting governor back to the presidency and was told: go ahead, Wike has control.

And this Thursday, May 21, 2026, on the floor of the APC governorship primary in Rivers State, three years of political warfare between Nyesom Wike and Siminalayi Fubara will arrive at its final act.

Everything says Wike wins.

How We Got Here: The Mistake of 2023

To understand what is happening in Rivers State today, you have to understand what Wike cannot forgive about 2023.

Wike made Fubara. That is not a disputed fact. Fubara was a relatively obscure accountant-turned-politician who served as the Rivers State Accountant-General. He had no independent political structure. No grassroots base built over years. No national profile. He came to power because one man pointed at him and said: this one.

That man was Nyesom Wike.

And within months of Fubara's swearing-in in May 2023, the new governor began making decisions that signalled to Wike that his godson intended to be his own man. He aligned with the G-5 governors who had broken from Wike's political orbit. He began building his own structures in the state. He refused to be managed.

Wike's response was immediate, total, and publicly stated. He said Fubara would not get a second term. He said backing Fubara in 2023 was a mistake he would not repeat. He said it on podiums. He said it to journalists. He said it to anyone who would listen.

At a political gathering earlier this year, the FCT minister vowed never to support Fubara for a second term, insisting that no amount of political pressure would compel him to repeat the same mistake of backing the governor in 2023. Wike also accused the governor of allegedly reneging on agreements reached during peace talks brokered by President Tinubu. "After agreeing on something, you renege. And you think you are a smart politician?" Wike said.

You think you are a smart politician.

That sentence from Wike was not anger. It was a preview.

The Structure War: How Wike Built The Walls Around Fubara

While Fubara was governing Rivers State, Wike was doing something else.

He was quietly, systematically, and comprehensively capturing every structure that determines who gets a party ticket in an APC state.

He cultivated the Rivers APC state chairman, Tony Okocha, whose loyalty to the FCT minister is acknowledged by everyone in Port Harcourt political circles. He maintained relationships with the factional Assembly Speaker Martins Amaewhule and the lawmakers who had aligned with him during the Rivers political crisis. He worked the national APC secretariat. He visited National Chairman Nentawe Yilwatda at his residence in Abuja this week.

Political insiders told THISDAYLIVE that calculations within Wike's camp are driven by the belief that control of the party structure ultimately determines control of delegates, and by extension, the governorship ticket.

Delegates. Not votes. Delegates.

In a party primary, the people who physically show up in a hall and raise their hands are delegates. And delegates are controlled by whoever controls the ward structures, the local government executives, and the state party machinery.

Wike controls all three in Rivers State.

The APC National Chairman heard Wike's report. The President gave Wike the green light. And then the machine was turned on.

The Screening: Where The Verdict Was Already Written

The screening exercise that began May 10 was not an assessment process. It was an announcement.

Three serving lawmakers widely identified as loyal to Fubara were disqualified from participating in the primaries: Hon. Anderson Allison representing Okrika/Ogu-Bolo, Hon. Awaji-Inombek Abiante representing Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro, and Hon. Boma Goodhead representing Kukurika/Asari-Toru. All three had defected to the APC alongside Fubara.

They defected with the governor to support the ruling party. They were thanked for their loyalty with disqualification.

Meanwhile, Wike's allies were cleared to participate. Hart Cyril, Blessing Amadi, Dumnamene Dekor, Martin Amaewhule, Solomon Bob, Uche Nwaeke, and Victor Obuzor, all with visible alignment to Wike's political structure, sailed through without incident.

The Rivers State House of Assembly Screening Committee disqualified 65 aspirants while clearing only 33. The pattern of who was cleared and who was not required no political science degree to interpret.

A party chieftain who spoke in Port Harcourt said: "The screening outcome has only strengthened the perception that some forces are trying to edge out people loyal to the governor from the structure before 2027."

Perception. That word is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

When Fubara himself arrived at the Plateau Governor's Lodge in Abuja for his own screening, the story that emerged told everything.

While other incumbent governors were successfully screened on Saturday, Fubara was conspicuously absent. He eventually arrived at about 3pm on Sunday. He stormed out of the screening room after only 20 minutes, visibly distressed. With anger written across his face, he refused to grant interviews to journalists who had waited hours. When accosted by reporters asking how the exercise went, Fubara simply said: "No comment."

No comment.

A sitting governor. Who had just finished his party screening. Walking to his car with anger on his face. Refusing to say a single word to journalists.

In Naija politics, that silence is louder than any press release.

The Man Wike Sent: Chinda's Arrival and Its Controversies

Wike's chosen instrument is Kingsley Chinda. Former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. Representing Obio/Akpor Federal Constituency, which is in Port Harcourt, the heart of Wike's political territory.

Chinda, who was until recently a prominent PDP figure and served as Minority Leader in the House, recently entered the Rivers governorship race under the APC platform.

A PDP Minority Leader. Contesting an APC governorship primary. Cleared by the APC screening committee.

The legal problems with this are substantial and being actively pursued.

The APC constitution under Article 31 states clearly that no person shall be eligible to contest for any party position or be nominated by the party if the person is not a member of the party. It also states that any party office holder interested in contesting for an elective office shall resign and leave office thirty days prior to the date of the party primary.

Chinda reportedly defected to the APC on April 27, 2026. The governorship primary is May 21. That is twenty-four days. Not thirty.

Legal practitioner Chizy Enyi petitioned the Speaker of the House of Representatives in an open letter dated May 9, 2026, calling for Chinda's immediate removal as Minority Leader. Enyi argued: "It is against conscience, natural justice, and the rule of the House of Representatives that he continues to occupy the position of Minority Leader. One political party should not be allowed to produce both the Majority Leader and Minority Leader of the House simultaneously."

Dax George-Kelly, Wike's backup candidate, has his own eligibility problem. He is the Director-General of the Border Communities Development Agency. Tinubu directed all political appointees seeking to contest the 2027 elections to resign by March 31, 2026. George-Kelly missed that deadline and allegedly received his April salary in violation of the exit order.

Two candidates. Two legal vulnerabilities. Both backed by the minister who controls the structure deciding who gets cleared.

In Naija politics, the man who controls the structure also controls whose eligibility problems become disqualifying and whose do not.

The Tinubu Dimension: Why The President Chose Wike Over His Own Governor

This is the calculation that Fubara's supporters cannot understand and Wike's opponents cannot forgive.

Fubara is an APC governor. He defected to the APC. He has been flying the APC flag in Rivers State. He should, in any straightforward reading of party loyalty, have been the president's preferred candidate.

Instead, Tinubu told Fubara to go and talk to Wike. If Wike agrees, you have my support. Wike does not agree. Therefore, Fubara does not have the president's support.

The calculation is not ideological. It is structural.

Wike delivers things for Tinubu that Fubara cannot. He delivers the FCT budget. He controls Abuja's physical infrastructure and can reward or punish based on allocation of contracts, permits, and development projects. He has national political relationships across party lines built over thirty years. He sits in the cabinet. He is the kind of man whose removal from the coalition costs more than his retention, regardless of the mess his retention creates in Rivers State.

Fubara is one governor in one state.

Wike is a national asset in Tinubu's political calculation.

That is the mathematics. Not justice. Not party loyalty. Mathematics.

An authoritative party source told THEWILL: "The President directed the National Chairman of the APC, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, to give Wike full control of the party's structure in Rivers State and approve all his nominees as candidates of the party in the next election."

Full control. Of the structure. In the state. To a man who is not a card-carrying APC member.

Can Fubara Still Win Thursday's Primary?

Let us be brutally honest.

Fubara has been screened and cleared. He is on the ballot. The primary is Thursday. His name will appear alongside Chinda, George-Kelly, and Tonye Cole.

But here is the structural reality.

Delegates are selected at ward level. Ward executives are the product of the congresses that Wike's structure controlled. The strategy is no longer hidden. The focus is on consolidating the APC structure from the wards to the local governments before the governorship primaries. That is where the real battle is, a source told THISDAYLIVE.

The battle was fought at the ward level. It has already been won. Thursday is the announcement.

There is one argument in Fubara's favour that deserves respect.

The Progressive Governors Forum, led by Hope Uzodimma, has been a major backer of Fubara since his defection to the APC, insisting that Wike, a non-member of the party, should not be allowed to influence party decisions or peddle his relationship with the president around the party.

If the PGF governors apply pressure on delegate behaviour in Rivers, and if enough of those delegates fear the institutional consequences of defying the body of sitting APC governors, Fubara's chances improve marginally.

But Wike made one phone call to the APC national chairman this week. He visited the man at his house. And then the Chairman gave him the structure.

One phone call. To the president. To the national chairman. Done.

The PGF is fighting a man who has direct access to the one person whose word ends every argument.

What This Means For Rivers State and Its People

There is a human cost to this story that gets buried under the political drama.

Rivers State has been paralysed by this war for three years. Infrastructure projects have been stalled. The state assembly has operated in factional chaos. Budgets have been delayed. Governance has been the casualty of a supremacy battle between two men whose primary concern has never been the eleven million people living in the oil-rich South-South state.

Public affairs analyst Obiwan Akanwa observed that recent political developments suggest the APC leadership at both state and national levels may not have given Fubara the level of political influence many expected. He noted that the unfolding events raise serious questions about the governor's actual standing within the APC despite public endorsements and declarations recognising him as a major political figure.

A Rivers analyst told THEWILL: "People of the state are tired of the prolonged rift between the governor and the minister to the extent that they simply want a relief. Supporting either of them has cost them good governance for the past three years and they want to move on with their lives."

Three years. Of political war. Paid for by the people of Rivers State who just wanted their roads fixed, their power stable, and their oil money to reach their communities.

That is the real story beneath the delegate counts and the screening results and the Abuja meetings.

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The Final Word

In Naija politics, nobody demonstrates the brutality of godfather politics better than Nyesom Wike.

He did not just oppose Fubara. He surrounded him. He took the state APC chairman. He captured the delegate structure from ward to local government. He brought his loyalists into the House of Representatives primary and cleared out Fubara's allies. He visited the national chairman at his house. He called the president. He drafted a PDP Minority Leader into an APC primary and had him cleared in twenty-four days when the constitution says thirty.

He was comprehensive. He was methodical. He was patient. And he was personal.

Three years ago, Wike made Siminalayi Fubara. On Thursday, he intends to unmake him.

That is not a political story. That is a lesson.

In Naija politics, a godson who forgets who made him usually learns the reminder in the most painful, public, and permanent way available.

Fubara is about to receive that lesson in Port Harcourt on Thursday, May 21, 2026.

Whether he has enough delegates to survive it is the only question remaining.

The answer, based on everything that has happened from the ward congresses to the Abuja screening to the president's own instruction to the party chairman, is written in ink that does not wash easily.

What do you think? Is what Wike is doing to Fubara in Rivers State a masterclass in political strategy or an abuse of ministerial power against a democratically elected governor? And if Fubara loses Thursday's primary, what does it tell every other APC governor about the limits of their own political independence? Drop your thoughts in the comments section. This Naija politics revenge story has been building for three years and the final chapter lands this Thursday.