Abuja – Nyesom Wike, the minister of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has alleged that human rights activist Deji Adeyanju approached him, seeking his blessings to become the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, saying he turned down the plea.
According to Wike, Adeyanju who ‘became jobless on account of the rejection’ has now become an emergency activist, using every opportunity to attack the FCT Administration under him.
Adeyanju, a lawyer, had recently attacked Wike for allegedly concentrating development on the city centre, an allegation that has been severally denied by the administration.
Last week, he led a protest against Wike over the demolition of Ruga, a settlement along Metro line corridor in Wuye District, according to local reports.
“I saw one young man, they call him Adeyanju. He is from Kogi State. This young boy came to me that he wants to be the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP and I said ‘No’..
“I said he won’t be, and he was not. I have no regrets about it. He has suddenly become a civil society activist. He has no job and that is why he decided to turn to a civil society activist,” Wike stated, while reacting on Wednesday evening during a live media chat in Abuja.
Shortly after the live media chat, Adeyanju posted on his Facebook page that he was too busy with clients that he would not be making any response until Friday. He however did not explicitly mention the minister’s name but rather used expletives.
The FCT minister had on Sunday vowed to go ahead with demolitions of shanties and illegal structures in the territory, saying government will not succumb to blackmail by few individuals who would rather that the status quo be maintained.
Wike, a former governor of the southern state of Rivers, had held an emergency security council meeting on Sunday evening, according to reports.
The FCT minister had in company of the security chiefs and journalists visited the Ruga community in Wuye District where town planning officials and security personnel had earlier gone on clearance operations.
There were reports that a handful of the squatters had protested alongside a lawyer, but spokesman of the community, Abba Garu conceded that they were illegal squatters and that previous administrations had carried out at least 22 demolitions of the area but the people always returned.
While he noted that the community was a mini-Nigeria as it had people from different tribes, Garu begged the administration for compassion.
In response, Wike asked him to nominate four other members of the community to meet with officials of the administration in order to come up with a humane solution.