Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has denied allegations that some power brokers are influencing President Bola Tinubu’s governance.
This was revealed by the FCT minister during the 2025 OAU Distinguished Personality Lecture on Thursday in Ile-Ife, the capital of Osun State.
“He has shown that he has the courage. Under Tinubu, there is nothing like a 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 Rivers State governor, gave the event’s keynote address.
The minister added that all previous Nigerian presidents, including Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, lacked the courage to eliminate the petrol subsidy and unify foreign exchange rates.
Wike claimed that if Tinubu had not removed the gasoline subsidy scheme, many people would continue to gain from 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 retaliated against his critics, demanding his resignation as minister. He suggested there was something wrong with people who thought he lacked the ability to deliver.
The minister requested that ground rent debtors in the nation’s capital city, Abuja, settle their outstanding obligations, claiming that heaven would not fall if they did.
The occasion 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; and his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom, among others.
