How Wike’s leveraging on Tinubu’s support to change FCT landscape, save lives

By Soni Daniel, Northern Region Editor

He came into the office of the FCT Minister as an unsung hero but opted to remain calm and embellish his true colour and character for some time. For others, all they knew and chanted about Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, was that he had been a two-time governor of Rivers State, a one-time Minister of State for Education and a two-term chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State between 1999 and 2007 before being appointed as the Chief of Staff to the Rivers State Governor. For that reason, not many believed in his ability to deliver in that strategic office. In fact, many had expected Wike to just occupy the space as a nominal representative of the South-South since the office of the FCT minister has often gone to one part of the country as an unwritten tradition.

Thus, as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced Nyesom Wike as his pick for the FCT in 2023, many Nigerians queried why he was making such a ‘queer’ appointment into such a crucial office that should be reserved for only proven technocrat or renown engineers and planners. Indeed, Wike wasn’t highly rated when he was appointed into that critical office and not many gave him any chance of success, given his alleged ‘limitation’ as a vociferous politician, who cares more about political success than physical transformation.

But, three years down the line, the Rumuepirikom-born lawyer and political scientist from Obio-Akpor LGA of Rivers State has proved his critics wrong and made President Bola Tinubu and Nigerians, particularly, FCT residents proud with what can be described as sterling performance. His critics may have a point against his political style, as he continues to play politics of ‘rainbow coalition across many partly lines but they have been silenced by what Wike has been able to deliver in the FCT. It is evident from the record already in the public domain that Wike has exceeded expectations and made his predecessors look like they never presided over the affairs of the ministry.

Within the span of three years, Wike has demonstrated beyond doubt that he was prepared for the job from day one, having landed in Abuja with a clear vision, bold determination and the political will to confront the development challenges that had long been plaguing the FCT and written his name in grandeur. The first and most important task he has tackled headlong, is the massive construction of roads and bridges in areas that had hitherto remained deathtraps to commuters and danger zones to drivers and motorists in the FCT.

Although the minister has so far constructed many roads and bridges and provided other indispensable services across the capital city, the work he has done to stop avoidable killings of commuters has given him out as a sensitive, responsive and a listening manager of human and capital resources. A few examples will suffice here: Before Wike became the FCT minister in 2023, innocent commuters struggling to cross the ever-busy highways that crisscross the city were compelled by the absence of overhead and pedestrian bridges to cross the burgeoning highways at the risk of their lives. The result was that many women, children and men were routinely crushed by vehicles.

The most dangerous points, which were then described as ‘killing spots’ were at Wuye, Katampe, Mabushe and Jahi areas to cite but a few. In one sad day in 2017, a family of ten were crushed at the Katampe spot while trying to cross the highway. The tragedy was so devastating that many drivers and commuters rush home in tears as the blood of the dead spilled and filled the side of the road where they were crushed by a truck. It was the same spate of killings that were being recorded daily at the Wuye spot straddled in between the Berger Bridge Interchange and Area One in the absence of a flyover bridge. Apart from the killing of commuters while trying to cross over the highway, the absence of any connecting structure between Wuye and Zone Six in the Central Business District also effectively cut off seamless interface between the two districts.  

Though Wuye boasts of an avalanche of houses and landed property, it was effectively severed from the rest of the city by lack of connecting overhead flyover and bridge.    Avoidable deaths were also being recorded daily at the Jahi ‘death spot’ due to the absence of any control mechanism for those coming from Dawaki to Jahi and those coming from Gwarinpa into Jahi or drive up to Dawaki. Left in that state of confusion, many lost their lives in painful circumstances at those dangerous spots. In Mabushe, many lives were regularly lost due to the absence of a pedestrian bridge to take commuters across ten-lane highway. A journalist with a national newspaper was even crushed at night some years ago at that dangerous point.

But on arrival as the FCT minister, Wike wasted no time in awarding contracts for the construction of flyovers at the dangerous spots in Wuye, Jahi, Katampe opposite the former Abuja Urban Mass Transit office and Katampe Extension, opposite NICON Junction, which leads to Maitama District. It was a big relief for commuters and drivers when President Bola Tinubu inaugurated the Wuye Flyover and link bridge on May 30, 2024 to mark his first year in office. That singular event has stopped incessant crushing of pedestrians by motorists. A sigh of relief, one would say!

Similarly, Mr. President commissioned the Katampe-Jahi-Mabushi link roads and the Maitama-Gishiri flyover bridge completed by Wike on June 11, 2025 as part of the events marking the President’s second year in office.

On that second-year anniversary, Mr. President inaugurated no fewer than 10 highly impactful infrastructure projects inckuding the Maitama-Gishiri Bridge, spanning the N16 corridor to streamline accessibility between the central capital and surrounding suburbs, the Katampe-Jahi-Mabushi Link Roads, providing a network of internal arterial roads    to connect the high-growth Katampe, Jahi, and Mabushi districts and arterial Road N16 (Shehu Shagari Way expansion) and the expansion of the main road network passing through the Gishiri area to link up with Wole Soyinka Way (Arterial Road N20).

Wike did not stop there. He went on to work on the Gwarinpa I Road Section, which provides a critical transit corridor to alleviate heavy congestion within the Gwarinpa zone, the Jahi-Kubwa Road Interchange Bridge with a flyover to securely route cross-district traffic connecting Jahi directly into the Kubwa Expressway, the Life Camp-Jahi-Kubwa Link Road Network, an infrastructure comprising bridges and access routes designated to create an uninterrupted transit corridor between Life Camp and Jahi and the Katampe District Internal Road Infrastructure to stimulate real estate and commercial growth in the zone.

lease of life.

A graduate driver, Asah Jerry, who ferried me to the airport recently, said that they now believe that Wike has created what they currently describe as the “Wike Effect’ that has enabled them to drive with ease and comfort in the FCT and without fear.

“We are excited about what Wike is doing in the FCT and we want him to know that we are in support of his work especially on roads and bridges. We now drive with a sense of pride and decency,” Jerry boasted.

“The President of Nigeria has taken away the avoidable deaths that had been taking the lives of people in the FCT daily with the introduction of Wike as the FCT Minister and God will surely bless this government who did it for us,” a woman, Naomi James, who lost a friend in Katampe, said.

Wike has come and seen the challenges in the FCT and has done his best to change the situation for the better. But what is left, is for the citizens to work with him and get it to the finishing line and give him a lift for the feat accomplished.

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