Lere Olayinka is the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) Public Communications and New Media to the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike. In this interview with YINKA OLADOYINBO, he spoke about the controversies surrounding land allocation revocation in Abuja and the crises within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Excerpts:
How has it been managing the media of two people that are considered to be controversial, former governors Ayodele Fayose and Nyesom Wike?
There is no much difference between the two personalities, they are fair minded people, they say their minds without minding whose ox is gored, when they say their yes, they stand by it and in most times they are people who believe in doing the right thing and this has made it easy to work with the two people.
The FCT minister has been in the news for sometime now over his actions, would you say he is being misunderstood or what?
You know the mindset of some Nigerians, we like to cut corners, we like to circumvent rules and the moment you see someone who is not agreeing to that there will be clash and don’t also forget that the man is where he is today at the expense of certain interests and I will categorise those making noise into three. One, people who believe he didn’t support Atiku then he betrayed PDP and because of that Atiku lost election. But because they don’t know what happened and because of the sentiments, they are Atiku’s people. Whoever stood on his way to become President is our enemy. The people are coordinated too, don’t forget the man has been vice president and was PDP presidential candidates twice so you should know that he will have a coordinated media structure approach. The second group is those on the social media that are called the obidients, who believed Wike should have supported Peter Obi to become president, instead of supporting President Bola Tinubu and they see him as someone that should be rejected, so those ones too are on social media running riot even if he is doing anything in their interest such things should be rejected, and thirdly there are people being propelled by the issues in Rivers State. Unfortunately the supporters of the person governing Rivers have been on the media attacking Wike, so we have coordinated media attacks from three fronts. I have been in this kind of terrain for sometime now, I know the way things are being run, on Twitter, you see one person having like 20 accounts just to attack and disparage the FCT minister, they set up those accounts purposely to bully and intentionally attack on social media. But as a person, I won’t waste my time on such people in because anyone involved in things like that knows that he is deceiving himself because he is only talking to himself. When I was working with Fayose in Ekiti, that was the first time a governor will have media chat on radio and television and people will phone in without being sensored. You see people calling in and talk directly to the governor without arranging anybody somewhere.
Don’t you think Wike facing battles from different angles has been affecting his performance and is he justified in taking up the battles?
At the end of the day, does the situation affect his job, I will say NO, it doesn’t. There is a fellow on social media, who has been writing for like five days “Wike the land grabber” he will just write like 20 lines and it got to stage that people were wondering what was wrong with him. Look at the issue of land grabbing accusations. When we came out to explain, people are now beginning to see reasons with him, so all those noise don’t distract the minister, he is a focused person. He will tell you “I no dey see, I no dey hear”, all he is doing is his job and he is doing it perfectly. If there is one reason why people believe that this government is working, it is because of the wonderful job he is doing as the FCT minister.
Talking about the issue of land grabbing. The Senate has asked the minister to halt action, so what is the situation now?
The Senate has done what is right and that would also afford those that are complaining the opportunity to show the world the evidence of their ownership of the land in contention, but I am sure many of them would not come if the Senate invites them because they are on the wrong side of the law and the only way they can make their cases sweet is to whip up sentiment and emotion. Look at the issue of Rita Lori that went on television and everywhere, when we came up to explain what happened, people saw that we were right.
How would you in good conscience get allocation of land in Abuja for the purpose of housing your staff as a construction company for the period the construction will last, the land was given as a temporary office, and the company of Mrs Rita Lori’s husband, Paulosa was not the only one that was given such offer. Companies like Costain and others were given and they left the site after the completion of their works. The only company that didn’t leave was Paulosa, the company decided to put permanent structures on the land and rented them out to people, they have been there for close to 40 years and they were collecting rents from people. So when they realized they were occupying the land illegally, the company wrote to government in 2020 asking that government should give them permanent ownership and that request was approved and a letter was written to them on February 1, 2023. They were asked to fulfill some conditions, which include payment of some fees that amount to about N67 million for a land that has been turned to an estate in Life camp in Abuja.
So they got the letter but ignored the offer, they didn’t come back for negotiation, they had complete 20 months but they did not pay anything and when government saw a serious person that wanted to buy, government collected money and wrote to them that since they could not agree with the opportunity given to them we have cancelled the offer given to them 20 months ago. So in the face of the law they never own the land before, they had the opportunity of owning it but they allowed it to slip, and it is not the government that asked them to vacate the place. It is the new owner, the person that bought the land and that is what is happening in most cases, the demolitions are being done by those who bought those lands.
Apart from those who build houses on drainage or water channels or those that have approval for building recreation parks and build residential buildings, like a woman who got approval for a park and went ahead to build school and church on the land and government said she can’t do that and if you do that there would be consequences, this minister has said he will not look at your faces to apply the consequences.
Why is the FCT minister building houses for judges, people says…
As he is doing it people are complaining, if he didn’t do it people will still talk. AU government properties in Abuja belong to the FCTA. Even the National Assembly complex, presidential villa belong to the FCTA. Let us assume that he doesn’t build but the judges are to build for themselves, who will allocate lands? It is from the same FCT that they will get land. So by allocating the land can it not sound like a way to induce the judges? If they get the land and they are going to build, the money that they will use to build will be appropriated by the National Assembly, can we also say that those in the National Assembly are trying to influence the judges? When someone is doing something that is good let us be honest and sincere enough to appreciate it. It was the same Wike when he was governor of Rivers State that made the Law School what it is today, and it is because Port Harcourt has a Law School, nobody complained that be was using it to curry the favour of judges. He did the same thing in Rivers State, building befitting accommodation for judges, if someone is making life comfortable for judges so that they can live where their security can be guaranteed, such should be appreciated. People that are making such allegations are the one involved in attempts to influence judges. It is when they fail that they come out to say that the judges are bad.
As a member of PDP working with an APC government, there is this belief that the crises rocking the PDP are being some argue orchestrated by Wike to hold the party down for Tinubu towards 2027
The PDP has been having crises before this time, somebody was vice president of this country, he went to form Action Congress and contested presidential election even as vice president of PDP. Was it Wike that caused that one? In 2014, this same person led the rebellion that took PDP out of power, was it Wike that caused that? This person went to APC struggled to get the presidential ticket and when he failed he ran back to PDP. If he had not left PDP, if he had not promoted the rebellion in 2014, the party would have been in government. When did the PDP crisis start? It started in 2003 when all efforts were made to make PDP win Lagos State but some people frustrated the efforts, you could imagine how it would have been if PDP had won Lagos State in 2003. In 2007 Atiku Abubakar joined the present President Bola Tinubu to form Action Congress, they were friends that time, they ran election together, he was praising Tinubu and said he has the interest of Nigeria at heart, it is because of the desperation of this one man that PDP is where it is today and until the man is confronted with the truth, the party will remain where it is and when you talk about it to some people, they will say let us leave that one and face the present, but there can never be present without the past. So let them stop talking about Wike working for Tinubu. When Obasanjo was president did he not appoint Chief Bola Ige, Dr Olu Agunloye as ministers? They were members of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), he also appointed the daughter of Chief Abraham Adesanya as special adviser, Obasanjo also appointed people from APP and other parties. Bianca Ojukwu is not a member of APC but she is a minister. It is only that of Wike that people talk about. The issue is Wike is not the problem of PDP. When Atiku left the PDP in 2014, it was people like Wike and Fayose that stayed behind, stood with the party and funded the party and Atiku came back to take over the party from them.
READ ALSO: You haven’t disappointed Tinubu, Akpabio hails Wike
