The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has said he enjoys stepping on the toes of influential individuals who defy the law.

Wike made this statement during a media chat in Abuja, where he reiterated his administration’s resolve to ensure that all property owners in the nation’s capital fulfill their financial obligations by paying ground rent or face penalties.

The former Governor of Rivers State also directed criticism at key members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), including Bode George.

He emphasized that the PDP must pay the outstanding ground rent for its national secretariat in Abuja.

Wike took aim at former FCT ministers, including the current Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, accusing them of lacking the will to confront politically powerful figures who are defaulting on ground rent payments.

“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,” Wike said.

“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.”

Wike’s administration had earlier published the names of 9,000 property owners who have defaulted on ground rent payments, warning them to settle their debts to avoid forfeiture of their properties.

Following this, on May 23, 2025, the FCT Administration announced plans to reclaim roughly 5,000 properties with rent debts spanning from 10 to 43 years.

The crackdown included the sealing of some properties, including the PDP national secretariat.

However, President Bola Tinubu later intervened, granting a 14-day grace period for all defaulters to pay up their outstanding debts and penalties.

Abia State Governor Alex Otti has said that his decision on whether to seek re-election in 2027 will only come after seeking divine direction.

Speaking at the Sam Ihesiulor Stadium in Okpuala Ngwa during a ceremony organized by the Oha Isiala Ngwa People from Isiala Ngwa North and South local government areas, Otti expressed gratitude for the support shown to him but stressed that the future remains in God’s hands.

His remarks were conveyed in a statement by his spokesperson, Njoku Ukoha.

“Just like 2023 was in the hands of God, 2027 will also be in the hands of God,” the governor said.

“So, while I thank you for this endorsement because I see it as an endorsement of what has been achieved so far, I also thank you for making predictions.

“I would only say that, I would go back and consult with my God. And as time goes on, my response will be made public. Because, as I said the other day, I know my people are waiting.”

Governor Otti also spoke about the administration’s focused investment in Aba, describing it as a critical strategy to drive the economic transformation of the entire state.

“Our concentration on Aba is because we do know that Aba can generate revenue for us to develop other parts of the state,” he stated.

“Aba occupies a prime place in our strategy because that is our major commercial hub. Not just for Abia, but the South-East and South-South.”

He reiterated that his government is committed to inclusive governance, with projects spread across all parts of the state.

He noted that the Mgboko–Ntigha road project is expected to be completed by December.

Otti also addressed the concerns surrounding the location of the Abia Airport project, affirming that the decision was made on technical grounds, not political influence.

He assured that landowners affected by the project had been fully compensated.

“We are not just building an airport; we are building an airport city. A three or four-star hotel is going to be there, and even the Nigeria Air Force is going to have a base there. There are going to be markets and shopping plazas within the facility.

“We have paid 100 per cent compensation to everybody whose land was affected. If there’s anyone that has not been paid, it is not our fault. Maybe, they provided the wrong account number or there are three or four people struggling for the same space,” he explained.

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has made it clear he intends to lead the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign in the 2027 presidential election.

Speaking during a media interaction in Abuja on Monday, Wike addressed allegations of disloyalty to the PDP due to his role in the cabinet of President Bola Tinubu, who is a member of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

Wike defended his party loyalty, saying “I am still in PDP. I worked hard for the party. I have not seen anybody who has the guts to tell me, ‘Wike, you are not a member of the party.’ Who is that? What is his contribution to the party that is more than me?”

“No one will take me from the party. I’m a member. In fact, I’ll lead the PDP campaign in Rivers by 2027.”

These remarks come amid ongoing internal frictions within the PDP, as some party members accuse Wike of betraying the party by collaborating with the APC-led federal government.

Reflecting on his current work as FCT Minister, Wike emphasized his readiness to confront entrenched interests:

“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.”

Commenting on the political crisis in Rivers State, Wike denied any ongoing feud with Governor Siminalayi Fubara and distanced himself from the federal government’s consideration of a state of emergency in the state.

“I don’t have any crisis with Fubara. I am not the president who declared the state of emergency. If Mr. President had called me that time, I wouldn’t have agreed on a state of emergency.”

Three major opposition figures, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and former governors Nasir El-Rufai and Rotimi Amaechi, have come together to launch a scathing attack on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, accusing him of worsening Nigeria’s poverty, hunger, and insecurity.

They pledged to block his re-election in 2027.

The trio made their position clear over the weekend during a lecture titled “Weaponisation of Poverty as a Means of Underdevelopment: A Case Study of Nigeria” held in Abuja to mark Amaechi’s 60th birthday.

Atiku, who ran as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in 2023, did not mince words in his criticism of Tinubu’s leadership.

“You may call me a conspirator, you may call me anything. That is why we are in this alliance, to make sure we don’t allow them to continue weaponising poverty.” he said.

He accused the current administration of using poverty as a deliberate instrument of political manipulation.

“What we are experiencing in Nigeria today is state-sanctioned weaponisation of poverty,” Atiku said.

He shared a personal anecdote to illustrate his point:

“When I was growing up in the North, Kano State was the most prosperous. After secondary school, I was posted there. I never saw people sleeping outside, not under bridges, not in front of shops.”

However, he said a recent visit painted a grim picture.

“But recently, during a visit to Kano, I saw people sleeping everywhere, under bridges, on the streets, driven out by poverty and insecurity.”

He added “there’s a state agency in Kano that provides support to such people. They began their work, relocating people from under bridges, enlightening them, helping them. What happened? They were called to a meeting and told to stop.”

Also speaking at the event, Rotimi Amaechi emphasized that poverty and insecurity transcend ethnic or religious lines.

“We are all hungry, all of us are. If you are not hungry, I am. For us in the opposition, if we are serious, we can remove this man from power.”

“We must unite and be committed if we want to get out of this problem. For the opposition to lead us out of this problem, we must all agree to submit ourselves to the interest of the nation first before that of ourselves.”

He continued “hunger doesn’t recognise tribe or religion. This government has made people poorer, and that has increased the level of insecurity and crime in society.”

“Nigerians must know that the power resides with them. If we are serious about change, the people have the power to make it happen.”

He also revisited his refusal to support Tinubu in 2023, which he attributed to concerns over leadership capacity.

“I told Tinubu in Yola: I will not support you; I will not work for you. And I didn’t. I didn’t vote for him. It was about capacity.”

Amaechi criticised how voters are manipulated:

“Some of us voted along ethnic and religious lines. Innocent, uneducated people are manipulated to vote based on ethnicity and religion, and that’s why we are where we are.”

“After events like this, we go behind closed doors to plot how to grab power. No Nigerian leader truly cares about the people. The benefits of the fuel subsidy removal? They’re sitting in the pockets of the elite.”

He also shared a personal experience to highlight Nigeria’s global reputation:

“I’m ashamed. I was detained in Germany for 30 minutes. I had done nothing wrong. I was going for a medical check-up. I showed them my return ticket, yet they said, ‘Wait’. Just because I carried a green passport.”

Nasir El-Rufai painted a dire picture of the country’s current state.

“Nigeria is in its biggest trouble since 1914. That’s why we are working and conspiring to build a coalition to take Nigeria back on track, because right now, it is off track,” he said.

He warned of a new breed of leadership failure:

“We’ve allowed bandits, not the ones in the bush but those in urban areas, the so-called urban bandits, to take over leadership.”

El-Rufai stressed that Nigeria’s problem isn’t just about who gets power, but what they do with it:

“Our biggest problem is that we hand over power to people who have no idea what to do. They only know how to seize power but not what to do with it afterwards.”

He called for citizens to elect leaders with true capability:

“We need people with competence, capability, capacity, and commitment.”

Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka commended Amaechi’s refusal to step down for Tinubu during the APC presidential primaries in 2022.

“The main reason I had to be here today is because I admire Rotimi Amaechi’s fighting spirit. It’s consistent.”

He recalled watching the primaries from abroad:

“I wasn’t in Nigeria, but I followed the primary on TV because I wanted to witness the drama. And I’m glad I did.”

He added, with irony “It gave me great, almost mischievous pleasure, rascally if you like, to see the incumbent president being given a dose of his own medicine.”

“While others were falling over themselves conceding, one man stood up and said, ‘No, I’m not conceding.’ That was Rotimi Amaechi. And I thought, this is what democracy is all about.”

Tinubu eventually emerged APC flagbearer with 1,271 votes, while Amaechi came second with 316.

Meanwhile, former CBN Governor and current Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, admitted his real understanding of poverty only came after he became a traditional ruler.

“Many of Nigeria’s elites have no real idea what poverty is. As an economist and a former CBN governor, I saw the numbers. But I didn’t know poverty until I became Emir.”

“You go to the villages and see the water they drink, the houses they live in, two-block classrooms with no roofs. Do we love the people, or do we just love ruling over them?”

He warned that development priorities are skewed:

“We build overpasses and underpasses in the cities for ourselves, while those in rural areas can’t even reach a clinic. We are in crisis. Our focus should be: how do we get out?”

Former Bayelsa Governor and Senator Seriake Dickson advised the opposition to be more strategic in their coalition efforts:

“There are a number of you who are expert conspirators, who know how to assemble coalitions and then take over governments as you did to my party in 2015.”

“Now, 11 years down the line, we thought that there would have been no weaponisation of poverty and that all the challenges of Nigeria would have been gone. But 11 years down the line, here we are, assembled to still bemoan the fate of our country.”

“This time, shine your eyes. As you live coalition and conspire, shine your eyes.”

Reacting to the opposition’s statements, APC National Director of Publicity Bala Ibrahim said the opposition lacks both “capacity and credibility” to unseat President Tinubu.

“When people speak out of anger because they are aggrieved, their assessments cannot be objective or fair,” he said.

“These are people with grudges against the current administration. Their judgement cannot withstand the test of conscience.”

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a reformer, and he has promised to deliver reforms that will lead Nigeria to prosperity. Yes, some people will feel offended in the process, that’s expected. But if the larger population stands to benefit, then so be it.”

Efforts to obtain a formal response from the Presidency were unsuccessful as calls and messages to spokespersons Bayo Onanuga and Daniel Bwala went unanswered.

The League of Northern Democrats (LND), a political group led by former Kano State governor Ibrahim Shekarau, has declared that it will only join the opposition coalition seeking to unseat President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027 if a new political party is registered.

This condition was made public in a statement issued by the LND’s convener, Dr. Umar Ardo, and 12 other senior members of the group after evaluating possible strategies for a viable opposition front.

The move comes amid speculations that top opposition leaders, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and ex-governors Nasir El-Rufai and Rotimi Amaechi, are considering rallying behind existing platforms such as the African Democratic Congress (ADC) or the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in preparation for the 2027 elections.

However, the Shekarau-led LND has firmly pushed back against this idea. In their official statement, Ardo explained:

“On the question of party platform, after carefully examining the two leading proposals, fusing into an existing registered political party such as the ADC or the SDP or registering a new political party, we conclude that it is best for the opposition to register a new party platform, presenting the most viable, principled and sustainable path forward.”

According to Ardo, time is not a constraint. He said the opposition still has enough time before 2027 to establish a credible and effective new political party, if efforts begin now.

He went further to highlight the structural risks of adopting an existing party, saying:

“The ADC, SDP and similar existing parties already possess entrenched ward, local government, state and zonal structures whose leadership tenures remain legally binding and often deeply resistant to reform.”

Ardo cited a specific example from Adamawa State:

“For instance, the ADC Chairman in Adamawa publicly declared that his mandate, secured in December 2022 in the Zaria convention, remains valid until December 2026, by which time the nominations will be long over. This reality exists across the country in all existing parties.”

He warned that attempting to merge into such parties without fully harmonising interests and leadership could backfire.

“Fusing into such parties without full and prior harmonisation of interests and control of these structures invites chaos, factionalism, litigation and paralysis.”

In contrast, he argued that creating a new political party would allow for unity, clarity, and a clean break from the past:

“A new party, by contrast, provides a clean ideological slate, a fresh institutional architecture and a compelling narrative of rebirth, one that can win the hearts and minds of Nigerians weary of recycled platforms and failed promises.”

Ardo concluded by urging coalition leaders to take concrete steps toward the registration of a new political platform.

“We urge the leadership of the coalition to initiate the process of registering a new political party with a unifying name, clear ideology and inclusive leadership charter.”