Significance of Wike as FCT Minister, By Martins Oloja
Please, do not wonder why I have to return to my organic beat, Abuja, the nation’s capital this week.
What just happened to the capital in quick succession is worth deconstructing for us to deepen our understanding of the status of our 47 –year old capital the late General Murtala Muhammed proclaimed for us on February 3, 1976. It has been revealed that General Yakubu Gowon dreamed of and advertised the capital during his regime, but he procrastinated. General Murtala Muhammed who was privy to the Gowon’s dream, actualised it in 1976. General Olusegun Obasanjo laid the physical foundation after February 13, when the actualiser was killed.
President Shehu Shagari threatened to legalise it by relocating to the capital in 1980 before another General Muhammadu Buhari stopped him in December 1983. He (Shagari) too was a procrastinator. But the Orkar coup scare was the tonic General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida needed to legalise it by moving to the capital on Thursday December 12, 1991.
And so the most precious gift the Generals’ rule donated to the(ir) Federal Republic of the Nigerian Army as General Chris Ali succinctly puts it in his classic on Nigeria, Abuja has been there as “their capital” until this month and last week when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took two significant steps to restore confidence in the national capital Hurricane Murtala sold to us 47 years ago as a “symbol of our unity”.
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And here is the thing, since inception of the administration of the capital, NyesomWike would be the very first Minister of the Capital of the Federation from southern part of the country. Before you shout, what of the late Ajose Adeogun (1976-1979), here is the fact file: the late Adeogun (who died on Saturday July 1, 2023 at 96) was widely reported as the first Minister of FCT. He wasn’t. He was actually designated as Minister of Special Duties with additional responsibility to supervise Abuja from 15B Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos as there was no structure yet on the 8,000 square kilometre FCT then. He was operating from a Field Base in Suleja in Niger State, a border town to the FCT. All other Ministers appointed since then from the South – from Mark Okoye (1980-1984) through Professor Ikejiani Clark to Jumoke Richard Akinjide have been Ministers of State. What’s worse, President Muhammadu Buhari who didn’t care a hoot about federal character in all his appointments for eight years desecrated the Territory as his last two ministers of FCT hail from the North (Adamawa and Kogi states). In other words, the first organic Minister of FCT was John Jatau Kadiya (1979-1982).
And so there is a sense in which we can report that President Tinubu has broken a 47 years old jinx. Just as he did the other day when he obeyed a 2018 Court of Appeal’s declarative judgment that an indigene, (original inhabitant) of the Federal Capital Territory should be appointed as a member of the Federal Executive Council (a Minister). The Indigene will be sworn in tomorrow. That was how in a twinkling of an eye, President Tinubu restored confidence of Nigerians including the original inhabitants (of Abuja) in the Capital of the Federation. We will no longer call it “Their Capital”. It is now “Our Capital”. In the same vein, the Niger Delta people who have been lamenting absence of their people in the mainstream political leadership and bureaucracy of the Capital despite alleged huge allocations from oil resources from Niger Delta spent so far on the capital project, can now relax their agitation for inclusion in the political leadership and bureaucracy of the FCT. Which reinforces the ancient word that only justice can guarantee peace and stability in any system.
According to a political geography scholar in Iran, Abolfazl Kavandikateb, ‘Capital or capital city is the municipality exercising primary status in a country usually as its seat of government and the most important center of political organisation and management of space in the country’.
