The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, is making it clear that no one is above the law not even the elite.
Speaking during a media chat in Abuja on Monday, the former governor of Rivers State addressed concerns that his strict enforcement of ground rent payments might ruffle feathers among Nigeria’s powerful class.
Unperturbed by the potential backlash, the minister stated: “I derive joy in stepping on the toes of big people.”
Wike criticized a pattern he has observed among Nigeria’s elite—traveling abroad to admire how laws are strictly obeyed, only to return home and defy basic regulations.
He said the time of selective law enforcement and elite impunity is over.
“The era where some people felt they could flout the law and nothing would happen is gone,” he warned. “Something will happen.”
Wike also said his predecessors in the FCT including now Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed lacked the courage to compel political bigwigs who own structures in the nation’s capital to pay their annual ground rent.
He said: “Look at what we are doing differently. People have said that FCT was not working (but) now it is working which means I’m doing things that they (past FCT ministers) refused to do.
“I found out that most of them didn’t have the courage to annoy people, to step on toes but I take joy when I step on the toes of big men; those who say nothing will happen but I say something will happen. It makes me happy.
“All they want me to do is to make decisions against poor people saying nothing will happen to them but I say something will happen. That is why we making results. If you don’t do the right thing, too bad. I don’t care.”
The Wike administration in the FCT had published the details of 9,000 debtors in newspapers, asking them to pay their ground rents to avoid the risk of forfeiture.