The unsavoury altercation that occurred last Tuesday in Abuja between the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, and a young naval officer is totally needless and avoidable.
It is quite unfortunate that the encounter between the minister and the young officer, identified as Lt. Ahmad Yerima, who could not have been older than his (minister’s) son, degenerated into an embarrassing shouting match that badly bruised his (Wike’s) ego. But he should have exercised ministerial discretion to avert the exchange.
The incident occurred at a contested plot of land in Gaduwa District, Abuja. There were concerns over construction on the site, linked to a former Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice-Admiral Awwal Zubairu Gambo (Rtd.).
The FCT minister obviously went to the site in a huff after repeated reports got to him that some soldiers were blocking FCT officials from accessing the disputed site to enforce a ‘stop-work’ order. Young Yerima and his team also refused Wike and his entourage access to the site, not allowing the minister’s presence to intimidate him.
This is at the point, observing the cussed posture of Lt. Yerima and his men, that the minister and his team ought to have carefully retreated to take up the matter with their superiors, because executive or ministerial authority is not exercised by a show of brawn but by institutional frameworks that run on the fulcrums of order and procedures.
The video footage of the drama has gone viral and been generating hoopla online. In the footage, the minister was seen demanding documents to justify the soldiers’ presence on the contested land.
“Show me the documents you have. You have no documents,” the minister was heard talking to the troops.
Lt. Yerima, who led them, told Wike firmly but politely that they were acting on ‘orders’ and possessed the relevant documents.
Wike retorted: “I am the minister. You cannot tell me that. We cannot continue with this kind of impunity. You cannot use soldiers to intimidate government officials doing their job. This country cannot continue this way.”
The visibly angered minister accused the officers of obstructing lawful government activity and using their uniforms to shield illegal structures.
“Even if you are a Lieutenant-General or Vice Admiral, it means nothing. The government must function according to law,” he said.
At a point, Wike almost threw caution to the wind, creating an anxious moment.
He said in anger: “If not for the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) who just spoke to me, you could have killed everybody here.” In other words, but for the CDS who had just calmed him down, he and his entourage would have defied the soldiers and probably bulldozed their way into the site, a development that would have spewed violence.
Lt. Yerima almost roused the beast in the minister at a point when he insisted that the land in question had been legally acquired.
Wike, in response, thundered: “Will you stop that? Will you stop that?”
The officer replied, “Sir, I’m an officer. I have integrity.”
The minister responded more angrily: “Shut up your mouth! Who does that? Will you get out? When I was in school, you had not even resumed school. Will you keep quiet? You are a big fool!”
The officer countered firmly but politely still: “I am not a fool, sir. I am acting on instructions and I am a commissioned officer.”
The impetuous exchange was unfortunate, a big misstep on the part of Wike. Momentarily, the incident stirred a wide uprush of anger and condemnations online and offline. Rather than elicit empathy for the FCT minister, what he got was a massive roasting from angry commentators for engaging in a needless public confrontation with a young officer.
A cross-session of retired military Generals, including former Chief Army of Staff, Lt.Gen. Tukur Buratai, flew into a howling rage and poured vitriols on the minister for engaging in what amounted to a street shouting contest over a matter he could cushily have settled through official channels.
His colleagues in the federal cabinet, both the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, and his Minister of State, Bello Matawalle, also chided him (the FCT minister) for resorting to ‘self help’ instead of pursuing his grievance over the disputed land matter officially. They both lauded Lt. Yerima for his discipline and professional conduct all through his encounter with Wike.
Matawalle added that the military would not punish Yerima because he did not commit any offence under military laws, adding that he only acted strictly on instructions. He said Wike ought to have settled the issue with Yerima’s superiors instead of exchanging words with him.
Matawalle revealed that Wike had earlier contacted both the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Naval Staff, who advised him to allow the military to investigate the matter before taking any action. But he ignored the admonition and went to the site only to cause an upset.
The FCT minister, who spoke to newsmen after the incident, said he respects all government institutions, including the military. But he explained that the altercation came about because FCT officials were assaulted in the process of enforcing development control regulations on the disputed site.
Wike maintained that he only intervened after top officials of the FCTA were assaulted while carrying out their official duties. He added that as a minister, he would not sit in his office while those working with him are being attacked.
This completely misses the point. The fact that the minister’s men were being assaulted does not warrant his physical presence on the contested site, to the extent of engaging in a shouting match with a young military officer, addressing him with expletives. That was an infantile display that belittles his status as a minister.
The solution to the issue, as has been canvassed by some of the respondents, is not to resort to a street brawl but to simply exercise his ministerial authority by exploring official channels.
Former Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and ex-Minister of Aviation under the Jonathan administration, Ostia Chidoka, in his contribution, put the issue more graphically thus:
“Any law enforcement officer, in uniform or plain clothes, represents the President and the sovereignty of the Nigerian state. To abuse such an officer is to diminish the authority of the Republic itself.
“Executive authority must be exercised or adjudicated through the courts, ministries and lawful instruments of state, never through confrontation. No matter how justified a grievance, a minister cannot become an enforcer; that violates the very idea of ordered government.
“In a democracy, ministers act through process, not presence. A formal communication to the Minister of Defence, whose office oversees the Armed Forces, would have sufficed. If the officers were on illegal duty, the established disciplinary systems would have addressed it.
“When a minister trades words with a uniformed officer acting under orders — lawful or otherwise — it corrodes discipline and confuses hierarchy.
“The officer’s duty is to obey the chain of command, not verbal instructions on a roadside; the minister’s duty is to act through lawful channels”. We cannot agree more!
Ordinarily, nobody is disputing the FCT minister’s authority to enforce the rules in his avowed policy to maintain Abuja’s original development plan by ridding it of illegal land allocations, encroachments and unauthorized structures, which he has been pursuing with grits and elan since he assumed office in 2023.
Many people may not know that much of Abuja’s land is still lying fallow, but every space has been earmarked for specific purpose on the original development plan from the beginning. There are areas specifically designated for packs, recreation sites, motor parks, green belts, pipelines, canals, roads, etc.
But some highly placed Nigerians, who ordinarily should be role models in good behaviour, break the city’s development plan with impunity by erecting on their acquired lands structures that completely deviate from the specifications given them by the FCT approving authorities. These are the distortions Wike has been addressing, just like Nasir el-Rufai did when he was FCT minister.
The parcel of land that caused Tuesday’s confrontation was allegedly illegally acquired. According to the Senior Special Assistant on Publicity and Communications to the FCT Minister, Lere Olayinka, the incident was the outcome of a land scam that misled ex-CNS, Vice Admiral Gambo.
Olayinka, who spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, said the contested plot of land was originally allocated in 2007 to a company, Santos Estate Limited, for park and recreation purposes, not for residential or commercial development.
In 2022, the company applied to the FCT Administration for a change of land use from park to commercial, but Wike’s predecessor, Olayinka explained, declined the request.
Despite the rejection, however, the company, Olayinka alleged, illegally partitioned the land and sold portions to private individuals, including Gambo, who started building a residential structure on the land.
If this is true, then the conduct of former CNS Gambo is highly condemnable. And he deserves to be scolded for that by the authorities. He ought to have regularised his ownership of the parcel of land when he discovered the true status of the disputed land.
Alternatively, he should have taken up the matter with the FCT Administration with a view to seeking a fresh allocation instead of using his military advantage to assault FCT officials enforcing the rules, as alleged by the minister. The uniform does not in anyway place him above scrutiny.
It is reassuring that the matter is already being investigated. The current Chief of Naval Staff has visited the site as part of the process of unraveling what actually happened. We enjoin the Defence Headquarters to make the outcome of the investigation public.
However, the FCT minister has not acquitted himself well on this matter, as noted earlier. The brusque manner he handled the confrontation with the young naval officer did not surprise many because that was vintage Wike. His conduct resonates perfectly with his bohemian traits.
The hubris of power accentuated his irascible approach to governance during his eight-tenure as governor of Rivers State and dovetailed into his current assignment as FCT minister.
As governor, he was a high performer who turned Rivers State into a big construction ‘yard,’ putting up thrilling infrastructure everywhere, just as he is doing now in the FCT. But he has a big ego problem. He has this magisterial disdain, which punctuated his relationship with his immediate staff, other government officials and people of the state generally, who came around him throughout his tenure.
He could be impulsive and abrasive. His cavalier nature also hallmarks his conversations, even with some of his superiors. He could be scurrilous and acerbic with his tongue. He talks down on people anyhow. He has a mercurial temperament.
Some time in January, 2020, Rivers State traditional rulers, among them first class monarchs, would not forget in a hurry an embarrassing encounter they had with Wike when he was still governor. They drank to their fill from the then governor’s haughty cup.
In the process of addressing the proliferation of non-recognized monarchs in the state at a meeting with the royal fathers, Wike talked to them like a headmaster will address his primary school pupils. He thoroughly ridiculed them.
He told the monarchs with a most disdainful voice: “It’s not for you to take it (staff of office) and go and keep it in your bedroom or put it in your shrine, for those of you who worship various shrines.
“It’s for when you are coming out for official function, you come with it. That differentiates you from any other chief. Some people call themselves ‘Royal Highnesses’ when they aren’t recognised by government, but you also carry a walking stick that is meant for other people who are not recognised by government.
“I want to tell the Attorney General so that we propose a bill to the State House of Assembly that if you are not a government recognised traditional ruler, you don’t bear ‘Your Royal Highness’.”
When the monarchs, in a servile display to probably please His Excellency, made to cheer Wike’s remarks on the steps he had highlighted to make traditional rulers duly recognised, he responded with a barrage of insults.
“Stop clapping,” he chided them. “You are being selfish. Stop clapping. It’s the right thing to do. It’s not because of you because you won’t be there forever. It’s to protect the institution. So, don’t clap because you are there now.
“This year we are going into will be a serious year….stop shaking your head because that’s sycophancy.”
He then stopped mid-sentence, his probing gaze fixed on a particular monarch the way a headmaster would zero in on an unruly pupil. “You..! Stop shaking your head,” he hollered at him. “You are one of those causing problems. They gave you chieftaincy, but you are a young boy; so you don’t even know what to do with it. And then when I’m speaking, you are shaking your head like this!”
Scenes like this were common during his regime as governor in the oil-rich Rivers State. Wike operated more like an imperial lord over a conquered territory as governor. This attitude continues to dog his steps, even in his new turf as FCT minister.
His arrogant and impudent character traits, which often define his impunity, are part of his dark side that he has to curb. His current boss, President Bola Tinubu, needs to call him to order and impress it upon him to embrace more civility and decorum in his dealings with people.
