The senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Ireti Kingibe, has launched a blistering attack on Nyesom Wike, describing him as an autocrat that should never have been made a minister.
She accused the FCT Minister of undermining constitutional governance in the nation’s capital.
Speaking in an interview on Arise Television, Kingibe did not mince words as she accused President Bola Tinubu of committing a grave political error by appointing Wike as FCT Minister.
“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 demarketed him the most—has been Minister Wike,” she said.
Kingibe, a first-term senator and former development expert, said Wike’s tenure has been marked by “a total disregard for the rule of law” and a tendency to make unilateral decisions without proper legislative backing.
“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,” she said.
The senator criticised Wike’s decision to revive previously dissolved FCT agencies without National Assembly approval.
“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’.”
She also accused the former governor under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of revoking significant portions of land legally allocated to public institutions such as the University of Abuja.
“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,” Kingibe stated.
She alleged a similar incident in Bwari, where land allocated for a general hospital was revoked and reassigned for commercial development.
“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,” she said.
Senator Kingibe lamented what she described as the mass displacement of indigent women who worked as street sweepers in the FCT, a program she said provided critical income for underprivileged households.
“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,” she explained.
“He comes, he’s fired them all… Then he doesn’t replace them with mechanical street sweepers. So, Abuja is looking dirty.”
She also accused Wike of ignoring hundreds of small-scale indigenous contractors who had yet to be paid for completed jobs.
“There are these people called Abuja Small Indigenous Contractors… maybe about four or five hundred of them that had not been paid,” she said.
“He says, ‘No, I’m not paying them. I didn’t give them the job.’ And that’s that. Two years on, they haven’t been paid.”
Kingibe further claimed that Wike has been harassing embassies and institutions over ground rent arrears, creating diplomatic discomfort.
“Minister Wike has been harassing all of FCT over ground rent… including embassies.”
She vowed to take up the matter formally with appropriate oversight bodies and challenge the minister’s actions through institutional processes.
“I’m going to take those documents and go to the body, the equivalent of his state assembly, and insist that that assembly—the president from whom Wike derives his powers—goes back to the National Assembly for approval for everything,” she stated.
“Wike, who is deriving powers from him, 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.”
Reacting to recent polls that suggested Wike was popular among FCT residents, the senator questioned their methodology and credibility.
“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.”
She challenged the notion that Wike had significant influence over electoral outcomes.
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“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.”
When asked if she could collaborate with Wike for the development of the FCT, Kingibe said her efforts at engagement had been ignored.
“I have tried to reach out for collaboration in the interest of Abuja residents, but he has refused to engage,” she revealed.
