Wike, my man of the year

His name is Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, from Rivers State. He’s the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). An office he’s held for barely a year and a half.

Precisely since August 23, 2023. Many people love Wike. Many others loathe him.



Others simply admire his guts and unfeigned audacity. Steely, ruthlessly courageous, daring with a heavy dose of derring-do, brash and never a man shy of a fight; a fight in a cause he believes in; a fight to defend himself, especially when his territorial influence is threatened. A fight to defend his country; a fight to protect his space.

Wike has been many things to many people. A jester in Nigeria’s junkyard of politics. A fashionista with a sartorial flair of Victorian and African couture.

A bullish workman who devotes all his energy to the job at hand. A rare Nigerian politician irrevocably committed to infrastructural development. Wike’s slapdash impetuous disposition and persona has often been misconstrued as brazen arrogance of a self-conceited demi-god.

Those are the many perspectives of Wike in the eyes of Nigerians. To some, he is controversial. He courts controversy and crests on the waves of controversy.

An attribute he shares with President Bola Tinubu, another rare Nigerian politician who has weaved his way through various storms of controversy and still emerges unbowed, unfazed. But love him or loathe him, you cannot wipe Wike off the Nigerian leadership map. He occupies a huge space there.

From his burgeoning days as local government chairman, later chief of staff to Governor Rotimi Amaechi, then minister of state, minister of education and back to his state as two-term governor, Wike has witnessed all shades of life in the nation’s sometimes treacherous public life. But in all these offices, none has witnessed more vociferous headwinds than his appointment as the Minister of the FCT. The thought of Wike, a southerner, becoming minister of the FCT got a handful of northerners outraged and enraged.

It was to be expected. The leadership of the FCT has in the 4 th Republic been ceded to northerners. But it is not a precedence backed by law, any law.

And this is where the Wike critics got it wrong. Their anger is misplaced. Their argument, jejune.

Tinubu, a great head hunter himself, must have thought deep to appoint a ‘near crazy’ workman to fix the FCT which has been sliding into the umbra of a slum, years after another ‘near crazy’ minister, Nasir el-Rufai, fought the establishment, pulled down houses of some ‘untouchables’ to restore the FCT Masterplan. Keep politics away, el-Rufai remains one of the best ministers in Obasanjo’s government. The FCT has had a few outliers as ministers.

On that list of outstanding FCT ministers is Jeremiah Useni, then a Lt. General (1993 to 1998) under Gen. Sani Abacha military regime.

Useni as FCT minister was a busy workman, building roads and houses. The now expansive Gwarinpa Estate bears his imprimatur. But in Wike, a greater than them all has emerged.

Wike is an infrastructure leader. He expressed it so profoundly in Rivers as governor. His devotion to infrastructural development in Rivers and the makeover of the state including rural areas was peerless.

He initiated and completed quality projects, in some cases daring the impossible. Like the road to Opobo, through swamp and waterways. He dared it and he delivered it.

Wike is an infrastructure wonk. Education, healthcare and other sectors profited from his craze for infrastructure. Truth be told.

Nigeria needs infrastructure leaders at all levels. The roads are bad, unsafe at any speed. Public hospitals are decrepit and sometimes unfit for even pigs.

This Yuletide, many Nigerians dread travelling home because the roads to their country homes are impassable. It is good to do reforms, but for a struggling third world country like Nigeria, what will impact the people most are good roads, creating access to rural precincts to facilitate movement of farmers and their produce to city markets. Good education bolstered by upscaled education infrastructure that promotes the ergonomics of learning.

Clean and well-equipped healthcare facilities that will inspire doctors and other medical workers to perform at their optimum. These are what Nigerians yearn for. And these were provided in Rivers by Wike, giving the entire state a veneer of modernity.

And for that, he earned the moniker, Mr. Projects, from the opposition. Then vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a man of tact and discipline, boldly proclaimed Wike ‘Mr Projects’, a testament to the verdant of projects wrought by Wike in Rivers State.

Wike is of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while Osinbajo was of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). No politics, just an endorsement of the wondrous deeds of a hardworking governor. Wike’s bullish run with infrastructure development in Rivers was so glaring and admirable.

He earned multiple awards, deservedly. Now as FCT minister, the Wike mojo has not dimmed. He became deaf to bigoted critics who called for his redeployment because he’s not a northerner.

And in just barely 17 months, the FCT now knows there is a sheriff in town. A stubborn, focused infrastructure minister. A leader who knows the way and how to get there.

Wike is on duty and the FCT is cleaner, better organised now than ever. The rural precincts of FCT are feeling the warmth of governance. Civil servants within the jurisdiction of FCT Administration are better motivated.

They know the days of lousiness are over. Wike is building a better, neater and modern FCT where residents and visitors must conform to basic rules that govern and promote good life. Even the criminals that once stalked the FCT with primitive hubris have beaten a retreat.

For his partial deafness to empty-headed critics and his unpretentious commitment to Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to engender a better Nigeria, Wike towers above many as my Man of the Year. He simply silenced his critics with evidential performance. Wike is a politician but he doesn’t play politics with matters of development.

Nigeria needs more of his type, shrewd leaders who build infrastructure for public good. The world now visits Rwanda because a shrewd President Paul Kagame rolled up his sleeves to build infrastructure and turned the nation from the ruins of war to an oasis of modernity..