Tuesday, July 15, 2025 - The lawmaker representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the National Assembly, Senator Ireti Kingibe, has taken her war with the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, to another level by blaming President Bola Tinubu for appointing the former Rivers State governor as a minister.
Kingibe who launched another scathing attack on Wike while
speaking during an interview on Arise TV on Monday, described his appointment
as a big mistake and a blunder by Tinubu because according to her, Wike has
only brought hardship on the people of the FCT with his style of leadership
which is replete with disregard for the law.
Asserting that her conflict with Wike stems from his alleged
autocratic leadership and consistent violation of constitutional procedures,
Sen. Kingibe stated that the minister is not only autocratic but does not obey
the rule of law.
“The primary thing is that the minister doesn’t obey the rule of law. He’s autocratic. He doesn’t follow any rules or any laws. And when you try to draw his attention that governance is based on laws, the rule of law, he doesn’t accept that,” Kingibe said.
“Minister Nyesom Wike has brought back agencies without the
enabling laws. If he wants these things, he should ask the National Assembly to
create the enabling laws. But he doesn’t, because he’s just autocratic. He
feels, I can do anything.”
Citing the revocation of land allocated to the University of
Abuja, the lawmaker said:
“Abuja University had approximately 11,000 hectares. Minister
Wike has revoked 7,000 of it and left them with four. It is definitely
against the Land Use Act for you to take land from institutions to give them to
individuals.
“Every minister has come and found the streets being cleaned
by indigent women. Even when some ministers come and want to bring mechanical
street sweepers, we say, no, this is a source of livelihood for our indigent
women, widows and other underprivileged women. He comes, he’s fired them all…
Then he doesn’t replace them with mechanical street sweepers. So Abuja is
looking dirty.
“There are these people called Abuja Small Indigenous
Contractors, maybe about four or five hundred of them that had not been paid.
He says, no, he’s not paying them. He didn’t give them the job. And that’s
that. And he didn’t. Two years on, they haven’t been paid.
“If truly, Minister Wike is as popular as he claims, you’re
talking about that poll, depending on who conducted the poll and how it was
conducted. I’m not knocking it, but I am saying, local government elections are
coming in a few months.
“When we come to any kind of election, can he tell the
people, go and do this and they do it? If he can’t, then it means that all that
any minister has been doing is blustering and carrying on and just making
noise.
“It’s my personal opinion that that is rather unfortunate,
because if I were making a list of all the things that President Tinubu has
done wrong, the greatest wrong he’s done to himself, the thing that has
demarcated him the most has been on Minister Wike.
“In Bwari, there’s land allocated for a general hospital.
Minister Wike revokes it and he’s having some sort of a market or mall or
something put on it.
“Minister Wike has been harassing all of FCT over ground
rent… including embassies.
“Wike does not go to the National Assembly for anything
except budget. TSA, all his IGR, what has he done with it? He’s never accounted
for anything.
“I’m definitely not afraid of him. I’m not saying he should
be afraid of me. I’m just saying that considering he should be aware that most
things he does, I will know,” she added.
0 Comments