Lawyer and former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Sector Reform, Dr Joe Abah, has weighed into the trending clash FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, had with a Naval officer, Lt A.M Yerima, over a piece of land.
In a post shared on X, Abah said Minister Wike was wrong to call the young officer (a fellow public servant) a fool and should apologize to him, He also said that the Minister also needs to apologize to President Tinubu and the general public for his “conduct that fell below the standards expected of a Minister of the Government of Nigeria.”
Abah, however, stated that Wike was right to challenge the impunity of deploying military officers to a private property. He went on to state that the President needs to sanction the military personnel who deployed the Naval officers to protect the land in dispute.
His post reads
”Minister Wike (a public servant) was wrong to call the young officer (a fellow public servant) a fool. He should not call ANYBODY at all a fool. He should apologise to the officer for calling him a fool.
He should also apologise to Mr President and the general public for conduct that fell below the standards expected of a Minister of the Government of Nigeria.
Minister Wike was right to challenge the impunity of deploying military officers to a private property. If, according to the officer, civilians were working there and FCDA officials came to stop them, the solution is not to deploy the military to a private property. Whoever deployed them should be sanctioned by the President, Commander-in-Chief.
The officer too should be guided that when he is following orders, he should not ‘descend into the arena’ and start making categorical statements about the completeness of the papers. Like Minister Wike said, it is not in his place to do that.’
