The minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike on Monday broke his silence on the political face-off between him and his predecessor, Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
He spoke on Fubara’s withdrawal from the 2027 APC governorship race and his support behind the emergence of House of Representatives member Kingsley Chinda as the party’s candidate.
While speaking with newsmen during an inspection tour of major infrastructure projects across Abuja, the former Rivers State governor revealed that a secret political pact brokered by President Bola Tinubu had underpinned the entire drama, disclosing that Fubara agreed to abandon his second-term ambition in exchange for the dropping of impeachment threats against him by the Rivers State House of Assembly.
While Fubara’s eventual withdrawal satisfied the terms of that agreement, Wike was scathing about the governor’s decision to purchase the nomination forms in the first place, describing the move as a breach of political trust and an affront to the president’s repeated peace interventions.
“In the first place, he ought not to have collected the form because the agreement was reached that the impeachment should be dropped, while he should also not talk about a second tenure.
“By collecting the form first, he didn’t show signs of gentlemanship. He didn’t show that sign, and that was not expected. We thought that Mr President had been intervening severally and pleading with the legislature not to continue with impeachment,” he said.
The minister expressed no surprise at the outcome, insisting that Chinda’s emergence was the natural result of his political stature.
“A good product markets itself. Everybody knows that Kingsley Chinda is the material. He’s quite experienced. He has worked with the executive and now in the legislature — you can hear his voice when he was a minority leader of the PDP. I’m sure that he must have been approached by the ruling All Progressives Congress to join them and then get the ticket,” Wike stated.
Wike made the remarks on what he described as one of his happiest days, having inspected a string of near-completed road and infrastructure projects across the FCT, including the Renewed Hope City in Kassara, the Old Kedfi Road in Dei Dei, the Airport Road to Kuje corridor handled by Arab Contractors, the Kuje to Gwagwalada first phase by Gilmour, and the City Gate project being executed by Julius Berger.
He said all the projects were ready for inauguration and praised the contractors for the quality of work delivered, singling out the City Gate project as a brainchild of First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
“When you have a good woman who means well for the administration of the husband — I’m talking about the First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu — this is her brainchild,” Wike said, adding that Julius Berger had promised to hand over the project by the end of May or the first week of June and was on course to keep that promise.
