The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike has lashed out at Chief Bode George, a former National Vice Chairman South of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as a jobless”old man’ who should be “reading newspaper” instead of unnecessarily intervention in the party’s affair.
The minister made the remark on Monday in Abuja, the nation’s capital while speaking to journalists in his monthly media chat.
Wike has been fingered among the major protagonists in the protracted political crisis that has rocked the PDP for months since it lost the 2023 presidential election.
The minister has received even more criticism after he ordered the FCDA to seal the PDP National secretariat in the nation’s capital .
The PDP secretariat was among the properties in Abuja sealed by the FCDA, on Wike’s order last week over alleged refusal by property owners to pay Ground Rent to the authority. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has however reversed the order, following the backlash that came from the members of the public, giving the property owners two weeks to regularize their payment to the FCDA.
George had while reacting to the controversy accused the minister of going too far, saying for instance that Wike treated the party that made him badly. The PDP chieftain said the minister should have simply paid the Ground Rent owed by the party, as a loyal party man that have benefited from the party, which he said made the minister who he’s.
He said what Wike did is compared to a man trying to destroy his father’s house.
George: “We were told we had not paid ₦7 million and so, we defaulted on the ground rent. The painful part of it is that the minister is also a member of our party. They waited until the day we were to hold our NEC meeting to shut down the place.
“Talking as an African, culturally, let us look at it as his father’s house where he grew up, where he went to school and became a public personality. What do you do to pay back that family?”
“What is ₦7 million? He should have just said to them, ‘Okay, ₦7 million, I’ll pay from my pocket. Take the receipt back to the party’s secretariat. You see, you people are foolish.
“‘I’m completely committed to this house; I am completely loyal to this house. I will not decimate it. This is the receipt, give me back my money.’ That is what you call a true son of that family.
“I call him (Wike) my political son. He was, on his first political outing, elected on the platform of this party as a local government chairman. Later, he became Chief of Staff to an elected governor of this party, then (former) President (Goodluck Jonathan) appointed him as a minister of state for education in our party, then became a governor for eight years on the platform of this party,” he stated.
Recall that George was a staunch ally of the minister during the agitation by Southern Leaders to have power shift to the South before the 2023 presidential election.
The elder-statesman had backed Wike against Atiku who later secured the PDP presidential election for that historic election.
