<\/p>\n
Former aviation minister, Osita Chidoka, has criticised Nyesom Wike, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), over his recent confrontation with a uniformed military officer in Abuja.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Tuesday, Chidoka said any law enforcement officer in uniform represents the authority of the Nigerian state, and that abusing such an officer \u201cdiminishes the authority of the Republic\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Wike\u2019s decision to personally enforce a directive at a disputed site was \u201ca fundamental misstep\u201d.<\/p>\n
Chidoka said executive power in a constitutional democracy must be exercised through lawful processes and institutions, not through physical presence or confrontation.<\/p>\n
He stated: \u201cIn a democracy, ministers act through process, not presence. A formal communication to the Minister of Defence would have sufficed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the officers were on illegal duty, the established disciplinary systems would have addressed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chidoka said a minister cannot assume the role of an enforcer of directives, adding that such conduct \u201cviolates the very idea of ordered government\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a minister trades words with a uniformed officer acting under orders \u2014 lawful or otherwise \u2014 it corrodes discipline and confuses hierarchy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said Wike should apologise to the officer for using \u201cabusive language\u201d, describing the behaviour as unacceptable.<\/p>\n
Chidoka also faulted the conduct of the Department of State Services (DSS) operatives attached to Wike, saying their responsibility was to \u201cextract their principal from a potentially dangerous situation, not to escalate it\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said security officers must remember that their loyalty is to the Nigerian state, not individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis episode demeans the dignity of the office of the minister and undermines the image of disciplined governance,\u201d Chidoka said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former aviation minister, Osita Chidoka, has criticised Nyesom Wike, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), over his recent confrontation with a uniformed military officer in Abuja. In a statement on Tuesday, Chidoka said any law enforcement officer in uniform represents the authority of the Nigerian state, and that abusing such an officer \u201cdiminishes the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":237295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-11-at-2.20.38-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}