BY ABRAHAM OGBODO
It is not right to say that Nyesom Wike is in the news again. He is, always. The big deal is when the Minister, who was also Governor of Rivers State for eight years, manages to stop boiling over and strike a comportment that does not attract news hunters. Last Tuesday, Wike as FCT Minister, went to recover a swath of land which acquisition did not, according to him, follow the due process laid down by the authorities of the FCT.
There are ways to own land in Nigeria. The Supreme Court said so in Idundun V Okumagba in 1976. This was even before the Land Use Decree came in 1978 to vest all land in the Governor, not even the President. The decree was to transform to an Act and finally included in the constitution as a supreme law. This means that the Land Use Act cannot be repealed or amended by another act or conventional parliamentary procedures. It can only happen by an amendment of Section 315(5d) of the 1999 Constitution.
It is as tough as that. Only the Governor can give right of occupancy of land in his trust. In urban area, this right is documented and it is called Certificate of Occupancy that is renewable every 99 years. In rural communities, it is largely an unwritten understanding called Customary Right of Occupancy that allows families to enjoy their land without statutory hindrances. This is not to say that the Governor has infinite powers to use and assign land vested in him as if dealing with his own share of a huge family heritage. He is only permitted to invoke the Land Use Act to acquire any land in his jurisdiction for overriding public interest. That is the crux of the matter.
Overriding public interest should be free of malicious intents. It does not include acquiring public land to reassign same to concubines and family members. The law is such that the Governor cannot even vire a land acquired for the building of a general hospital, for instance, for the building of a secondary school. Public interest is not a convertible commodity that changes form and description. Once named in the acquisition process, it remains as named. This strictness is to hold back trustees like Nyesom Wike from bursting the seams of the trust. If matters of land are left hanging without regulation, feudalism shall move to the extreme. Powerful men shall drive less powerful men underneath the sea and acquire both land and water to themselves.
Back to the Wike’s building site visit. Commentaries have been flowing freely like September flood since that altercation between Nyesom Wike and a young Naval officer called Yerima. Permit me to recreate the setting. Wike got information that part of the FCT land vested in him as the Minister by the Land Use Act had been illegally acquired and being rapidly developed by the land grabber. The grab was allegedly carried out by a retired military top brass who also positioned soldiers at the site to prevent the land from being re-grabbed by another grabber. I am not here to delve into details to establish rightful possession or ownership of the land and apportion blame. Or to establish, which, between possession and ownership, is a stronger factor in land matters. What I can say is that the land is substantial enough in size and value to turn Minister Wike to a court Bailiff. He left his comfortable office for the site to effect the recovery himself.
And that is where the story should begin. I don’t know it all hence I will be humble to ask questions. Is there any section in the Land Use Act that empowers the trustee, in this case, the FCT Minister, to stage that piece of drama last Tuesday? That is, to personally storm building sites, like a special forces unit of the Nigerian Army, to recover from a developer, land that was not properly assigned by the FCT? I shall grant all the assumptions to give Minister Wike all the benefits of doubt. As Minister, Wike was doing his legitimate job. It is however doubtful if his brief includes personally storming building sites to recover land in the FCT from trespassers.
It is also said that the minister in his capacity, acts on behalf of the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces. See Section 5(1a) of the Constitution. It says the President and C-in-C can also function through the ministers of the federation of whom Wike is one. It means Minister Wike can also act madness on behalf of the President and it would equally pass for the madness of Mr. President.
The funny thing about law is that it is both substantive and procedural. Lawyers approach it from the side that is more favourable to them. A matter that is substantively successful could fail on technicalities. That was why the Supreme Court dismissed the petition challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election. The petition failed procedurally. The law that gives power also says how such power should be exercised. Look at it again. A Minister, without a supporting court order went roaring his powers to evict illegal occupants from government land. His strength to so roar derives from the retinue of gun trotting men around him. He met an officer of the State, a naval officer at the head of a company of armed soldiers. The officer was under strict instruction by his superiors to hold his grounds and defend the area. If it is about working for the state, Wike and Officer Yerima are working for the state and on behalf on the President and C-in-C. They only difference is that they have separate job descriptions. That was the problem last Tuesday.
In the military, a command to standfast is a command to fight to finish. To die in action. This was clearly and most respectfully communicated to the roaring minister who felt too important to listen. He lacked the grace to appreciate the procedural breach that was putting power and authority on a collision course. Authority is defined by power without which authority loses its power to author and enforce a change of affairs. Officer Yerima is only a tactical operator deployed to implement instructions. There is a big strategic house behind him. In the face-off between him and Wike, he had a strategic back-up. His superiors, even in the police, have been rising up to his defence.
Not with Wike. And that is the difference between Yerima and Wike. The latter is a strategic player that chose to diminish himself. He went on a tactical mission with a fall-back arrangement. When the mission failed, he was exposed and then humiliated as he beat a retreat to his office. He overreached himself in pushing his authority as a minister. The situation was not that of a power contest. It was a contest of wits in which wisdom and restraint were better fighting tools than courage and grandstanding. In the end, he had nobody to run to for protection because he is actually the one to give a strategic cover, in the event of a failed tactical approach of the FCT. This is what happens when impunity and impudence pollute statesmanship.
In April last year, the Delta State Governor, Rt Hon Sheriff Oborevwori had faced a similar situation. The army had rolled over Okuama, a fishing community on the Forcados River following the killing of 17 soldiers and officers of the Nigerian Army by yet to be identified gun men. When the Governor visited, he was denied entry to inspect the razed community. The soldiers on guard explained that the razed town had been marked operational area and it was not safe for a non-combatant, who could be caught in a cross fire, to move in for inspection. Governor Oborevwori simply turned and came back to Asaba. He acted behind the scenes and at the strategic level to remove the army from Okuama.
With Wike however, nothing comes by engagement. Nothing is also sacrosanct. Everything and everybody except the APC and President Tinubu must be tackled to submission. He is too drunk with power to understand that the military runs its own protocols. Retired Service Chiefs are entitled to military protection for life. Back in the days in Warri, the U-turn on Decco Road directly opposite the home of late General David Akporode Ejoor, was not a spot to mark time. You must keep moving and fast too. The soldiers on guard were on strict instruction to ensure nothing untoward got close to their former Chief of Army Staff, Major-general Ejoor.
For me, a much bigger task is getting Wike to stop making every engagement a supremacy contest. He lacks the humility and temperament to exercise power. What if he is the President and C-In-C? He would surely aspire to be greater than God. With him, winning is a duty. He is perpetually maximalist in approach. It is either victory or nothing. If you looking for evidence, meet Governor Similaye Fubura in Port Harcourt for details.
Wike is always searching for points to score even when there is no competition. For instance, if a director of the FCT had been sent to the site in Abuja and returned to report the development, the Minister would have enjoyed a tactical cover to relaunch strategically. In his insatiable quest to steal every show, he put himself directly on the firing line and got badly bruised. He lost the opportunity to intervene in the matter without the attendant bad publicity. He equates political visibility and a touch of rascality with intellect, administrative wizardry and courage. He had gotten away with almost every bad thing including pushing Nigeria towards a one-party state.
And so, everything considered, it was good that Officer Yerima happened to Wike. The incident holds the prospect of slowing down the roaring Minister. It is good for his health. He was deflated. No high voice has risen to his defence.
An officer in uniform is a symbol of the state. To rain abuses on him because you are a minister, does not speak well. In case he does not know, Wike should know now that in Nigeria, it doesn’t take too much to become a minister, governor, senator or any high-ranking politician. It only takes brigandage, plenty cash and a bit of luck. But it takes years of exhausting mental and physical training to become an officer of the Nigerian Army, Airforce or Navy. In the United States, marines are applauded on sight. Their President, Senators, Reps, Secretaries and ordinary Americans stand and clap at the sight of the American marines. They are not abused. That culture is lacking in Nigeria.
