‘Port Harcourt No Be Abuja’ The Insurmountable Tasks Nyesom Wike Faces

Nyesom Wike’s appointment as minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu could be Wike’s biggest political task yet. As minister, he will have to govern a people who are majorly religiously and ethnically different from him while trying to retain power over his previous domain, Rivers State.

On 18 September 2023, less than a month after Nyesom Wike was sworn in as the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, the government demolished a popular Kilishi market located in Area 1 of Abuja for blocking the road and making commuting difficult. This move generated mixed reactions: while some observers praised the minister for quick efforts to improve the state of the country’s capital city, others criticized his seemingly rash actions. Wike, however, expressed steadfastness in his promise to sanitize Abuja, an agenda reminiscent of his eight-year term as governor of Rivers State, during which he earned the Distinguished Award in Infrastructure Delivery in 2022 from the then-president, Muhammadu Buhari.  

Rivers State, Wike’s state of origin and Abuja, where Wike is the first Southerner to be appointed FCT minister in 47 years, are two different political arenas. While in Rivers he was the undisputed mayor with limitless, seemingly absolute, power in Rivers, Abuja presents a different kind of challenge: for one, being a Christian, southern, leader of a Muslim-dominated northern city puts him in a precarious position. The first sign of the predictable ethno-religious push-back against his leadership has already emerged. During a sermon on 19 October 2023, Ahmad Gumi, a prominent Islamic cleric, asked President Tinubu to remove Wike as FCT minister describing him as a devilish man under whose leadership ‘Abuja will now become an extension of Tel Aviv and when they see anyone with a beard like us, they will say it is Bin Laden and we will be killed.’ On the same day, Wike had to make public clarification that he had no plan to demolish the Abuja national mosque in response to rumours. For the next three years, his leadership in Abuja is hinged on the proverbial gunpowder that could set off a chain of (un)expected explosions stoked by ethno-religious sentiments...