The ruling party’s most powerful bloc is fracturing, and 2027 may be the prize. Toye Faleye reports
By Thursday night, May 7, 2026, the whispers had turned into a meeting. About 20 APC governors slipped into the Ogun State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja.
No press release. No photographers. When they walked out, Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu had a new title on paper: chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum.
The move blindsided Hope Uzodimma. The Imo governor had spent the afternoon in Abuja speaking on behalf of all APC governors at the submission of President Bola Tinubu’s nomination forms. But hours later, his job was on the line.
“I remain the chairman,” Uzodimma said the next day, standing with 18 other governors at the Imo Lodge. Kebbi’s Nasir Idris moved the vote of confidence. Kaduna’s Uba Sani stood beside him as deputy.
On the other side of the room sat Dapo Abiodun and AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. Ogun and Kwara, leading a rival bloc that insiders say includes at least a dozen governors from the North and South. The names keep shifting, but the split is real.
What Broke First
The PGF was meant to be the party’s backstop. Twenty-two governors, one forum, one message. For months, that illusion held. Behind closed doors, governors complained about being cut out of key decisions ahead of 2027. The final straw came when Uzodimma’s visibility grew too loud, too fast.
“It was quick, deliberate,” said one governor present at Thursday’s meeting. “Some of us felt the forum was drifting toward the presidency, not the governors.”
Uzodimma’s camp calls it a coup attempt. PGF Director General Folorunsho Aluko was blunt: no meeting took place, no resolution was passed, no removal occurred. “The PGF secretariat has no record of, and is not aware of, any resolution removing the Chairman,” he said Thursday.
But the optics are messy. You don’t call an emergency meeting of 18 governors on a Friday afternoon unless something is broken.
Why it matters
Governors don’t just govern. In Nigeria’s party system, they fund, mobilise, and decide who gets on the ballot. Lose a governor, and you lose structure in a state. Lose half the forum, and you walk into primaries with one hand tied.
Uzodimma knows this. His pitch is simple: unity behind Tinubu, no distractions. “We are united and have reached a consensus in supporting Mr President to continue the good work he is doing,” he told reporters Thursday.
Abiodun’s camp hasn’t spoken on record. They don’t need to. The attendance list at the Ogun Lodge meeting spoke for itself.
The Mood on The Ground
In Owerri, APC ward chairmen are calling it an insult to the Southeast. In Abeokuta, it’s different. “It’s time the forum stopped being a rubber stamp,” said one party official, asking not to be named.
At the national secretariat in Abuja, younger party members are nervous. “If governors can’t agree among themselves, how do we face PDP and the others in 2027?” asked a youth leader who’s been handing out flyers since 2015.
How This Occurred in The Past
PDP fractured over zoning in 2010 and paid for it in 2015. AD collapsed after governor-level fights split the Southwest in the early 2000s. The pattern is familiar: a ruling party grows confident, the governors start jockeying, and the centre can’t hold.
APC knows the history. That’s why Friday’s meeting mattered. It wasn’t about procedure. It was about showing the public that the forum still has a centre.
Three Ways This May End
If President Bola Tinubu intervenes, Uzodimma stays, and the forum closes ranks. The situation looks messy, but survivable.
Another possible scenario is that the primary may split. Then two blocs run parallel processes. APC walks into 2027 weaker, divided, and more easily beatable.
It’s also possible that the governors start testing the waters elsewhere. Once one moves, others follow.
Right now, it’s option one by public statement, option two by body language.
Implications
The trouble inside the Progressive Governors Forum matters because it hits the APC where it’s weakest right now: trust between the states and the centre.
Governors don’t just show up for photo ops. They’re the ones who pay for rallies, keep the ward offices running, and decide which names make it onto the ballot.
When they start meeting in separate rooms and announcing different chairmen, that quiet machinery starts to seize up. Nobody says it out loud yet, but the phone calls have changed. People who used to coordinate without thinking twice are now double-checking who’s in the room before they speak.
For Tinubu, it’s a bad look at a bad time. He stood with Uzodimma on Thursday as the face of the party’s governors. By Friday morning, that picture no longer held. If he steps in, he’ll be accused of picking favourites.
If he stays out, the other governors will keep testing how far they can go without him. Either way, the idea of a single APC front takes a hit.
The real danger is what happens next if nobody pulls the two sides together. Governors who feel sidelined don’t usually sit quietly. They start taking meetings, listening to offers, and reminding themselves that they’ve delivered elections before.
It only takes one or two of them walking with their structures to shift a state. Once that happens, others watch and calculate. That’s how parties bleed out, slowly and in public.
APC’s edge in the last two cycles was that it seemed the only party with governors on the same page. That’s what made donors feel safe, and aspirants fell in line.
If that image cracks, the whole calculation changes. Opposition parties don’t need to be stronger. They just need APC to look like it’s arguing with itself while they keep quiet and pick up pieces.
Right now, it’s not a breakup. It’s a warning. The governors are telling the party that they want more than a seat at the table. If that conversation doesn’t happen soon, the argument won’t stay inside the lodge in Abuja. It’ll play out in state primaries, on campaign buses, and in the numbers on election night.
The Scramble over Who Owns APC
However, this isn’t just a chairmanship fight. It’s a fight over who owns the APC going into 2027: the presidency, or the governors who deliver the votes on the ground.
The next few weeks will tell. To stabilise the APC, key stakeholders should schedule transparent reconciliation meetings, foster regular communication, and create measurable commitments to unity. Meetings are still happening. Phones haven’t stopped ringing. And nobody in Abuja believes this is over.