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Abuja residents to Wike: We’re not dragging power with you!
All we are asking for is to survive as humans, were the words with which residents of Abuja suburbs, appealed to the conscience of Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), currently carrying out a massive onslaught that has culminated in many of them being displaced.
Regardless, the Minister in waving aside their pleas, is insisting that he would not yield any ground in his determination to clean up the FCT and return it to its original glory.
He said on Sunday that neither the appeal to emotions nor pressure from human rights crusaders, which he dismissed as blackmail would deter him.
Against the backdrop of interventions by some elements in the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and rights activists, calling for a cessation of demolition exercises in the city, the Minister who spoke while visiting the demolished Ruga settlement alongside heads of security agencies in the FCT, vowed not to relent.
The Minister after a security council meeting on Sunday evening, was apparently referring specifically to the actions of human rights lawyer, Deji Adeyanju, and controversial social media critic, Vincent Martins Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, who joined some residents in protest on Friday, against the demolition carried out by the Department of Development Control, particularly their call for President Bola Tinubu to stop him from further action.
Wike, who maintained that the administration was only interested in protecting lives and property in the FCT and ensuring that Abuja was one of the best cities in the world, added: “I must also say that no amount of blackmail, no amount of intimidation, no amount of abuses; we must go around to do our jobs. It doesn’t matter who they go and hire, they call them civil society or not civil society, we are not interested in that.
“Our interest is to protect lives and property, to safeguard Abuja so that it will be one of the best cities in the world. As far as this road is concerned, we have told them nobody is going to build anything, whether temporary or permanent. We will not allow them until the government has made a final decision on what to do on this piece of land.
“As of yesterday being Saturday, you may not believe it, myself, the Director of Land and Development Control, we went round, we saw so many shanties, so many areas that they converted to bus stops and the rest.
“And we have decided that some of these areas will be converted to new bus terminals, and such shanties will be demolished to allow for good environment, orderliness and for people to carry out their businesses.”
Wike also directed that five representatives of the residents should meet with the heads of security agencies and the directors of Land and Development Control, to give recommendations to the administration on what should be done.
Abba Garu, who spoke on behalf of the settlers, pleaded with the Minister to provide shelter for them, noting that the latest demolition exercise carried out in the previous week made it the 22nd time such exercise would be carried out by successive administrations.
“We are not dragging anything with the government that we own the land, but we are pleading, please and please, honourable minister, this environment you are seeing is like a mini-Nigeria. Every tribe you check is here because we are lower class people living around.
“We are seeking from the honourable minister’s office to help and assist us, to give us a shelter where we can reside with our people. This place you are seeing, Mr Honourable Minister, we are over 10,000 people in this community. We have four axes. Our people don’t drag with whatever government wants to do with their land, but we are Nigerians.”
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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