RIVERS STATE DESERVES PEACE

MUSA PAI urges Nyesom Wike to concentrate on his job in Abuja

Two of Nigeria’s most consequential power centres today are the Federal Capital Territory and Rivers State. One is the seat of national authority and the symbol of our collective future; the other is the country’s energy nerve centre. Stability, competence, and restraint are therefore non-negotiable in the governance of both. What Nigeria is witnessing today, however, is an unhealthy concentration of political overreach by one man, Nyesom Wike, who now threatens governance in Abuja while pushing Rivers State toward needless chaos.

It is neither normal nor healthy for a minister, other than the President, to exert disruptive influence over two such critical centres simultaneously. Yet that is precisely what the Minister of the FCT has attempted: to govern Abuja in name while continuing to rule Rivers State in fact. This is not public service; it is political empire-building on steroids. And it has consequences.

After eight uninterrupted years as governor, Wike was appointed Minister of the FCT, an office with executive powers equivalent to those of a governor and, historically, one of the most sensitive portfolios in the federation. For a Southerner and a Christian, it was also a rare opportunity to serve the nation at its political core and to help advance the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda. Instead of rising to that responsibility, the minister appears consumed by an unquenchable desire to retain control of Rivers State by proxy, pursuing a third term through the back door.

The result is predictable. Abuja is drifting. While the minister boasts of road construction, and yes, some roads have been built, the city itself is unravelling. Governance cannot be reduced to asphalt. A capital city must function as a living system. Today, it does not. Parts of Abuja have had no reliable pipe-borne water since November 2025. Public sector workers are on strike. Primary and secondary schools have suffered prolonged shutdowns. Health workers have repeatedly withdrawn services, leaving residents exposed and vulnerable. Refuse heaps line major streets, drainage systems are blocked, and insecurity—one-chance robberies, kidnappings, ritual killings—has become disturbingly routine.

These are not coincidences. They are symptoms of abandonment. A minister distracted by Rivers’ politics cannot properly run the FCT. The selling off of green areas to private developers, the conversion of planning zones into a concrete jungle, and the collapse of basic city management all point to an administration without focus or accountability. Abuja is fast losing the dignity expected of the nation’s capital.

Even more damaging is what Wike’s fixation is doing to Rivers State itself. His open-ended war against Governor Siminalayi Fubara, including renewed impeachment threats, directly undermines the peace pact brokered by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The Rivers people did not vote for perpetual crisis. They voted for governance. The state’s importance to Nigeria’s energy security makes this reckless brinkmanship not just irresponsible but dangerous.

There is also a broader political cost that the Presidency cannot ignore. Allowing a minister, who is not even a member of the ruling party, to openly harass and destabilise an APC governor sends a troubling signal. It weakens party cohesion, emboldens indiscipline, and fuels the perception that loyalty to the President can be weaponised into personal impunity. Governors across the country are watching. So are voters.

Wike’s own rhetoric compounds the problem. His repeated boasts that he “made” the President, and his public defiance of party and presidential authority, create the impression that the Presidency is captive to one man’s ego. No President can afford that perception. Left unchecked, it erodes authority, fractures alliances, and hands the opposition a ready-made narrative of weakness and disorder.

This is not about ingratitude or denying past political support. President Tinubu has rewarded loyalty-and generously. But loyalty does not confer a licence to destabilise the federation or embarrass the government. The Renewed Hope Agenda is anchored on discipline, order, and national interest. Any official who undermines these pillars, regardless of past contributions, becomes a liability.

The danger is now clear. In the FCT, governance has stalled. In Rivers State, political tension is escalating. In both places, Wike’s actions are creating enemies for the President and damaging the administration’s standing ahead of 2027. This is a wrecking ball approach to politics—one that has already shattered his former party, the PDP (as he has been expelled), and now threatens to do collateral damage to the Presidency itself.

Mr President, leadership is ultimately about choice. You cannot afford a minister who governs nowhere entirely and destabilises everywhere deliberately. Nigeria’s capital deserves undivided attention. Rivers State deserves peace. The country deserves clarity.

Pai, a political analyst and concerned FCT resident, writes from Abuja