FCT Minister Wike slams Peter Obi over governance record and political tactics

Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike on Thursday sharply criticized former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, accusing him of turning every issue into “politics and propaganda” and challenging him to compare his eight-year tenure as Anambra State governor with Wike’s two years in office.

The remarks came during the commissioning of two newly constructed roads—ILS 11 (Esther Bali Street) and MAR 24 (Kez Udezue Street)—in Abuja’s Mabushi District. Wike’s comments were in direct response to reports of Obi’s recent visit to LEA Primary School in Kapwa, Abuja, where the ex-governor highlighted the facility’s deplorable condition, including the absence of toilets.

Wike faulted Obi for not privately alerting him to the school’s issues, emphasizing that the roads being inaugurated were flagged by “responsible Nigerians.” He urged Obi to focus on substantive actions rather than public grandstanding.

“It’s not everything that you must play politics with,” Wike stated. “Peter Obi, you were governor for eight years in Anambra State. If you had finished all the jobs in eight years, nobody will be talking about developing Anambra State now.”

The minister alleged that Obi had deposited funds intended for Anambra’s development in Fidelity Bank to earn interest, prioritizing personal gains over the state’s needs. “Instead of developing Anambra, you put the state money in Fidelity Bank… so that profit will be coming and Anambra will be suffering,” Wike claimed, referencing reported tensions between Obi and his successor.

Drawing a stark contrast, Wike said: “Mr. Peter Obi, we just came to the office two years ago, we have not even spent four years but you spent eight years. Compare the two years we have spent in office with the eight years in office in Anambra. Can you really say you love this country? Can you really say you love Ndi-Anambra? Certainly not.”

Wike further dismissed Obi’s public engagements, such as visiting internally displaced persons (IDP) camps or celebrating birthdays with the underprivileged, as insincere. “If I were you, why not keep quiet? Enough is enough. You can’t be President of Nigeria only when you go to one IDP camp or birthday party… Doing your birthday in IDP camp does not make you feel you love Nigeria. When you were governor, why didn’t you do your birthday in IDP camp? It’s now that you want to do your birthday that every day you do your birthday with the less privileged. Who will you deceive?”

Escalating his critique, Wike declared that his achievements in the FCT over two years outweigh Obi’s record in Anambra over eight. “I challenge him to come out publicly and compare what he did for 8 years in Anambra with what we have done in the FCT in just two years,” he said.

He also pointed to Obi’s handling of internal crises within the Labour Party as evidence of managerial shortcomings. “Someone who cannot manage a political party as a presidential candidate is talking about managing a complex country like Nigeria,” Wike added. “You run as president under a party and you can’t manage the party, to hold the party together you can’t. It’s Nigeria of over 200 million people that you want to manage… A party of how many people, there is crisis, you can’t hold them.”

Wike advised Obi against relying solely on social media for validation, warning that it would confine him to being “president of social media and not president of Nigeria.” He stressed that even as FCT minister, he cannot claim omniscience over Abuja’s issues and encouraged responsible citizenship through direct communication rather than online publicity.