ABUJA: In a dramatic twist ahead of the February 2026 Federal Capital Territory FCT Area Council elections, the Minister of the FCT and Peoples Democratic Party PDP stalwart, Nyesom Wike, openly campaigned for the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, urging residents to back the party at the polls.
Wike, who stunned observers with his open endorsement, threw his weight behind Christopher Maikalangu, the Abuja Municipal Area Council AMAC chairman who recently defected from the PDP to the APC and is seeking re-election.
The minister made the declaration at the flag-off of a 7-kilometre road with four-span bridges linking Tunga Madaki to eight other communities—a project he described as a product of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
According to him, the road construction was compensation for communities that ceded land for the second runway of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.
“It was unfair that a people surrendered their ancestral lands for a national project like a second runway, yet had no access road, even to the airport they gave land for. I took the matter to Mr. President, and he said, ‘Whatever they ask for, give it to them.’ Today, we are here to fulfill that promise,” Wike declared.
He announced that the road, being handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation CCECC, would be delivered in June 2026 to coincide with Tinubu’s third anniversary in office.
Wike urged the people to repay the APC at the ballot box.
“One good turn deserves another. When you do for me, I do for you. When you fall for me, I fall for you. When you listen to me, I listen to you,” he said.
The minister hailed Maikalangu as a “tireless advocate” who pushed relentlessly for the project, and urged voters to return him for a second term so that the road commissioning would become “a joint celebration.”
He further challenged residents to compare the APC’s performance with that of past administrations.
“You have had council chairmen before—did anyone remember Tunga Madaki? Did they connect you to the airport whose land you gave away? Ask them where they were when your roads were impassable,” Wike charged.
He emphasized that the new road would not only link the communities to the airport via Bill Clinton Drive but also open up nine neglected settlements to long-awaited development.
The February 2026 polls are expected to serve as a litmus test for the APC’s political dominance in the capital, where no ruling party has ever secured all six councils in a single election.
