*Photo: Nyesom Wike, FCT Minister*
When Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State remarked, in his 23 December, 2025 media chat, that he had already made one million dollars as a contractor in 1997 at a time, he claimed, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike had perhaps just left Law School, he stirred the hornet’s nest. In a 29 December, 2025 media chat, the minister noted that his Law degree which the governor was referring to was actually his second first degree, since he had earlier acquired a first degree in Political Science. He further declared that while Governor Makinde chose to be a contractor, “I have never been a contractor. … I chose to have power and I have the power.”
The results of the 21 February, 2026 Rivers State House of Assembly (RSHA) by-elections for the Ahoada East II and Khana II constituencies and the FCT area council elections show that Wike’s declaration was not an empty boast. His candidates, the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s Mrs. Bulabari Henrietta Loolo and the party’s Napoleon Ukalikpe, won the two RSHA seats respectively. In the FCT area council elections, the APC candidates he supported won five of the six area councils, and the sixth one was won by the candidate of his faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The National Secretary of APC, Senator Ajibola Basiru, noted that of the 62 councillorship seats in the FCT, APC won 45 and PDP won 17, with the African Democratic Congress (ADC) winning none.
Wike’s mystique is in the fact that he was a winner where APC won, and was a winner where PDP won. This was so, because he had managed to create a delicate balance between being a member of PDP and being an appointee in the APC administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in which he is serving as Minister. In his home state of Rivers, he has also managed to forge a working alliance between APC and PDP. This has conferred on him uncommon bi-partisan influence, such that he has been able to tell members of both parties in the state that it is in their interest to support the President for a second term in office in the 2027 elections.
To those who have been accusing him of engaging in anti-party activities by belonging to PDP and pledging to work for the APC presidential candidate in 2027, Wike has had a number of answers. One, he said he took requisite permission from all of the appropriate organs of the PDP before joining the APC-led cabinet. Two, he believed that it would amount to conniving at geo-political insensitivity to support a candidate from outside Southern Nigeria considering the fact that late President Muhammadu Buhari, who was from the North, had just completed eight years in office. As such, Wike believed that President Tinubu who is a Southerner should, as a matter of justice, be allowed an equal eight-year tenure.
Three, Wike believed that it would be foolhardy to support a PDP presidential candidate, because some lawless members of the party had created crisis in it leading to seemingly unending litigation which has made it difficult to determine the lawful officers to undertake the requisite and valid nomination of candidates for elections from the PDP. In other words, if the party’s presidential candidate were to be wrongly nominated and that candidate were to win at the general elections, it could amount to a waste of effort and resources if the victory were to be successfully legally challenged and nullified.
Meanwhile, Wike underscored subscription to legality as his political watchword. In a 12 March, 2025 media chat, he said: “I follow the path of rule of law. I follow the path of justice.” This may explain why he and his political associates have had the tendency to win major legal battles, such as challenging the attempt to prematurely remove Senator Samuel Anyanwu as the National Secretary of PDP.
Even much earlier, on 5 September, 2022, at the invitation of the then-Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, in the aftermath of PDP’s fateful presidential primaries for the 2023 elections and the creation of the G5, incumbent Governor Wike said: “Look, nobody should bother about any abuses on me. … I’m too much for abuse. … Politics is not to go on pages of newspaper o. Politics is not to go and buy television slots and talk. Politics is who will deliver at the appropriate time. … What is important is when the time comes, we will know; when the jungle matures, we will know; we will know those who can stand crisis. We will know those who will face crisis.”
At the same Abia State programme, Wike also said about his traducers: “God has given me what it takes for me to crush these people, for me to crush my enemies, … Now that I know I have the capacity to flog these small boys … I’m going to flog them pepperly. … When we start campaigns, we would know who is who.” In a 1 January, 2026 interview on Channels Television, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State attributed the crisis in his state to Wike, because he said Wike had threatened to put fire in the state of those governors who were unduly interfering in Rivers State affairs. Rather ominously, at the 3 February, 2026 National Executive Committee meeting of the PDP Caretaker Committee, Wike declared: “I’m interested in Oyo [State].”
President Tinubu is known for building persons over a long period of time. The latest example of this is that of the new Acting Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, who was his Aide-de-Camp when the President was Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007. Like President Tinubu, Minister Wike builds people. One notable example of those he built is Hon. Boma Iyaye, who through Wike’s patronage is currently the Executive Director, Finance and Administration of the Niger Delta Development Commission. In the past, Wike supported him to become a member of the Rivers State House of Assembly. Governor Wike also appointed him Commissioner for Sports and Commissioner for Local Government Affairs.
President Tinubu has suffered betrayal from some of the people he built; and like him, Minister Wike has suffered betrayal from some of the people he built. But the President and the Minister are unlike, because while the President is a generally-speaking reticent person who rarely reacts instantaneously and can keep quiet on a matter for some time, Wike is noted for being more immediately expressive and verbally volatile, and for possibly sometimes saying more than he should.
Therefore, an interesting question here is: Who recommended Wike to President Tinubu for appointment as a minister or how did the President come to identify him as an appropriate appointee? Whatever the answer to this question might be, the undisputable fact is that Wike’s appointment as minister has come to be a mark of President Tinubu’s uncommon political ingenuity. In fact, in a 26 February, 2026 X post, Engr. Tom Steve (P.FISA @stevetom788) remarked about Wike: “He is the ally every strategic thinker desires; the bulwark every serious political structure requires.”
This is why it is strange that Wike’s detractors keep asking President Tinubu to relieve the Minister of his appointment. Ironically, the more they ask for his sack, the more the President has cause to commend Wike publicly for his efficiency and impact. After the Rivers State and FCT area council elections victory, Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to the President (Information & Strategy) issued a press release in which he noted about President Tinubu: “He commends the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, for his remarkable achievements in the territory, which have yielded political dividends to the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).”
Similarly, on 25 February, 2026 in an interview with Nifemi Oguntoye of TVC News, the National Secretary of APC said: “[W]hen you see the massive infrastructure development that has occurred in the FCT, not only in the urban areas but even in the suburbs in the past two and a half years of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, you will discover that the sterling performance of the FCT Minister … has helped in that victory. So, you cannot discountenance effective administration and deployment of our dividends of democracy in the FCT under the present FCT administration from the success of our party in that election.”
Furthermore, in a 23 February, 2026 analysis of the outcome of the FCT elections on the TVC News programme Journalists’ Hangout, Babajide Kolade-Otitoju said: “[P]eople would think that Wike is just a rabble-rouser, a noise-maker; but he’s a calculative politician and … he has a good political brain.” Moreover, on the same programme, Gani Kayode-Balogun said about Wike: “I think he had made up his mind very early when he came into government to make a difference. A lot of people don’t do that. They usually let the system direct them.” In addition, on 25 February, 2026, in a Facebook comment on a picture of Wike posted there by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Ayokunnu Kabir Sanni called Wike “Professor of Advanced Political Engineering.”
Wike can also engage in caustic humour. In a 29 December, 2025 media chat, he called the Ibadan 15 to 16 November, 2025 PDP convention hosted by the Governor of Oyo State “Amala Convention,” thereby reducing it to a food-fest. Moreover, in a television broadcast to FCT residents on 22 February, 2026, Wike mocked the campaign strategies of the ADC for the FCT area council elections when he stated: “The election has further exposed the hypocrisy of people who go about buying corn and groundnuts from roadside sellers for the purpose of campaign just to deceive Nigerians.”
But Wike is flesh and blood. This was clear when on 7 February, 2026 he placed a curse on those he believed were supporting his betrayers, thereby seeking the support of transcendental forces. Moreover, it showed on 26 February, 2026 when he led a delegation of Rivers State elders to commiserate with the family of his long-time friend and political associate, late Senator Barinada Mpigi, representing Rivers South-East, who passed away on 19 February, 2026. While eulogising the deceased, Wike became overwhelmed with emotion and fell into a deep silence, holding a drooping head. But he is resilient and manages to stay afloat, whatever the circumstance.
Wike is not perfect, as no human being is. But he has enough that is positive in his personality to make his faults pale into insignificance, at least within certain contexts. As his profile as an elder statesman continues to rise, Wike needs to make concrete efforts to address his limitations, the chief of which is to reduce his speech and raise his mystique.