The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has dismissed insinuations that some power brokers are influencing the governance of President Bola Tinubu.
“He has shown that he has the courage. Under Tinubu, there is nothing like cabal. This is a president that is in charge,” Wike said at the 2025 OAU Distinguished Personality Lecture in Ile-Ife, the Osun State capital, on Thursday.
Wike, a lawyer and former governor of Rivers State, delivered the keynote lecture at the event.
The minister stated that all former Nigerian presidents, including Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, were not bold enough to remove the petrol subsidy and unify the foreign exchange rates.
Wike said so many people would still be benefiting from fuel subsidy fraud had Tinubu not removed it.
He said, though Nigeria has underperformed in the last six decades since independence, and all imaginable fault lines are cracking, the nation can still rise and blaze in glory if the right governance frameworks are put in place.
The minister stressed the rebuilding of trust and the strengthening of the cord of unity in diversity for Nigeria to forge forward.
He said the desired Nigeria won’t fall from heaven but will require the vision, sacrifice, hard work and purpose of all citizens. “Let us leave for the next generation resolves and not regrets,” he said, urging all Nigerians to be committed to the nation’s building.
The politician took a swipe at his detractors, calling for his removal as minister. He said something was wrong with those who claimed he lacked the capacity to deliver.
The minister insisted that ground rent debtors in the nation’s capital city, Abuja, must pay their outstanding debts, adding that heaven would not fall if they did so.
The event was also attended by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi; the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun; former Enugu State governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi; his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom; among others.
