By BOLAJI O. AKINYEMI

There comes a time in the life of every administration when sentiments must yield to sense, and political loyalty must bow before the altar of national interest!

For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that time is now, and the subject is Nyesom Wike!

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, once touted as the masterstroke of political inclusion, has become the symbol of everything wrong with this administration?s moral compass.

What began as an experiment in bipartisanship has degenerated into a display of impunity, arrogance, and constitutional vandalism!

The cost of keeping Wike is no longer political; it is now a national liability and an international embarrassment!

From Political Asset to National and International Embarrassment

When Tinubu brought Wike; a proud People?s Democratic Party stalwart into the federal cabinet, it was seen as a bold step towards reconciliation. The President believed that by co-opting a strongman from the opposition, he could neutralize dissent and gain traction in the Federal Capital Territory, where the APC has historically failed to win.

But what began as tactical inclusion quickly mutated into strategic embarrassment. Wike?s bulldozer politics, his contemptuous public utterances, his warlord posture in Rivers State, and his imperial conduct in Abuja have all become burdens too heavy for the government to bear!

The altercation with Naval Lieutenant A.M. Yerima is only the latest symptom of a deeper malaise; a Minister drunk on power and unchecked by decorum. The video of that exchange, now viral, exposes not just Wike?s temperament but the erosion of civility at the heart of governance. The question is not whether the naval officer overstepped his boundary; it is why a Minister should descend into verbal violence in public! That is not leadership. That is lawlessness!

Politics Over Governance: The Price of Presidential Indulgence

From day one, this administration substituted governance with politics. The FCT became a theatre for political posturing rather than public service. Billboards of Tinubu and Wike sprang up like mushrooms not as symbols of development but of vanity. The cost of those billboards could pay the salary of FCT teachers for a decade, yet those same teachers went on strike over poor conditions of service!

While Wike built roads and flyovers, the real infrastructure of the future; the knowledge infrastructure was left to decay! The FCT civil service, over 30,000 strong, became the direct constituency of his tyranny: transfers, suspensions, and dismissals became tools of fear!

And all this, we are told, is in pursuit of the President?s re-election in 2027! But roads don?t vote; people do. And in the FCT, votes count ? under the watchful eyes of international observers!

If the President believes Wike?s brand of recklessness will deliver the FCT to the APC, he has misread both the terrain and the temper of the people. What Wike is building is resentment, not loyalty; rebellion, not support!

The Institutional Cost: When the Police and Military Become Pawns

The Yerima episode also exposes a deeper institutional rot. What was a naval officer doing, guarding a private property (an empty plot) in the first place? Why reduce military officers to a similar public image of police officers, who take orders that serve political vendettas rather than public order?

The Inspector-General of Police himself, sitting on a questionable tenure has become another metaphor for Nigeria?s institutional decay. When legality becomes elastic and impunity wears a ministerial cap, the rule of law loses its meaning.

If this administration cannot correct such aberrations, it risks legitimizing them! And when illegality becomes normalized, governance collapses into gangsterism!

The Integrity Cost: Allegations, Optics, and the Judgment of the World

Recent revelations by activist Omoyele Sowore alleging that Wike has quietly acquired properties in the United States in the names of his sons whether true or not, cast a long shadow over this government?s credibility. In the court of global opinion, perception often becomes reality!

If intelligence reports before the United States government, under Donald Trump administration, contains even whispers of such misconduct by a sitting Nigerian minister, what message does that send about Nigeria?s moral standing?

What picture does it paint of a nation where a naval officer is deployed to secure a retired officer's private estate against the invasion of a Minister accused of buying mansions abroad for his children? It tells the world that Nigeria has traded integrity for impunity, that public office has become a marketplace for personal enrichment, and that the so-called war against corruption is little more than theatre!

President Tinubu cannot claim ignorance of how these optics undermine international confidence. The world is watching, and history will remember not just what Wike did, but what the President tolerated!

The Moral Cost: When Silence Becomes Complicity

Every day Wike remains in office, the moral cost to the Tinubu presidency rises. His arrogance stains the image of a government struggling for legitimacy. His recklessness deepens the cynicism of citizens who already believe that the APC has lost its reformist soul!

Vice President, Kashim Shettima publicly distanced himself from the unconstitutional excesses that led to the declaration of State of Emergency in Rivers State. But that stand, has further deepened the conversation, that, many in this administration serves no public good. What does the intelligence review of the US government say about our "honourable Vice President's" involvement with Boko Haram? Does integrity still matter in our space? Does power have conscience? The possibility of President Tinubu not continuing beyond 2027 is daily being sealed by such constitutional summersaults and now, executive recklessness! The world witness both around Wike. The challenge now is, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must act with courage to overcome the threat of being removed by the coming invasion of the American Military.

To continue indulging Wike is to signal to Nigerians and the global community that impunity pays, that loyalty is purchased with fear, and that political expediency trumps constitutional order. That is not the legacy Tinubu promised to build and doesn't serve any purpose during this season except the de-marketing of whatever value the administration is left with!

The Political Cost: When a Leader Protects His Undoing

Wike is not fighting for Tinubu; he is fighting for himself. His only consistent loyalty has been to his own ambition. His presence in the cabinet has fractured trust within the APC, alienated reformist allies, and strengthened the opposition?s narrative that Tinubu?s government is directionless!

No serious reform can survive the perception of hypocrisy. You cannot preach progressive governance while defending a man who governs by bulldozer and insults!

The longer Wike stays, the more he becomes Tinubu?s albatross, a symbol of everything Nigerians resent about politics: arrogance, impunity, and moral bankruptcy!

A Time for Decision

Mr. President, history is calling. The question is not whether Wike has done some good, tyrants often do. The question is whether his continued presence serves the higher goal of restoring public trust, strengthening institutions, and rescuing your presidency from moral disintegration.

Leadership is not the art of rewarding loyalty; it is the discipline of enforcing accountability. Wike has become a national liability. Keeping him is no longer an act of political loyalty; it is a betrayal of the public trust!

Let him go, not out of anger, but out of wisdom. Let this be the moment when you choose governance over politics, principle over power, and Nigeria over Wike!

The cost of keeping him is already too high. The greater cost will be what his recklessness burns down if you delay!

? Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi, An Apostle & Nation Builder, first published this piece in the social media under the headline, "The Cost of Keeping Wike: When Political Loyalty Becomes a National Liability and International Embarrassment".

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