Only a few politicians in Nigeria have a penchant for courting controversy and revelling in the attention that media publicity brings like the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. The minister relishes the beam of the klei light and attention-grabbing kickers or riders of the national dailies. The ever-feisty and garrulous minister is in the news again. But this time around he has decided to take things a notch higher by dipping his feet into the diplomatic waters and sensitive terrain of international relations.
On May 23, 2025, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) led by Wike, released a list of 9,000 landholders—including 34 foreign diplomatic missions—who allegedly failed to pay ground rent dating from 2014 to 2024. What started as discreet notice tinged with tenancy admonition is quickly degenerating into a diplomatic logjam capable of morphing into a geopolitical row.
Wike has made a name for himself in the cutthroat dog-eat-dog Nigerian political system through his tenacity, pugnacious and combative approach to issues. From his days as an obscure local government chairman to becoming a truculent governor of the oil-rich River State in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, he has cut the identity of one who does not shy away from a fight. But these traits and creeds are potent weapons that can win him his local political battles. Geopolitics, international relations and diplomacy require tact, civility and decorum, which are anathema to Wike’s abrasive and belligerent dispositiond. The threat to close embassies for owing ground rent amounts to plunging headlong into a diplomatic crisis.
International laws and conventions are quite clear and unambiguous on matters of embassies and missions of countries in foreign lands. And Wike cannot carry over or infuse the braggadacious with which he barrels through Nigeria’s political landscape into the ambit of international law. Already, the announcement of the imminent closure has sparked reactions and stern warnings from Nigerians who understand the danger such a move portends if enforced.
Legal luminary and activist Femi Falana has cautioned Wike against the move. According to him, the closure and invasion of the embassy of any country will engender a serious diplomatic crisis for Nigeria. Socio-Economic Rights And Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged Tinubu to halt any closure, warning of “international law and diplomatic convention” violations.
While it is highly imperative for Nigeria to assert its authority, exert its influence and nudge back in-line nations and foreign individuals who are trying to shortchange it or game its system, it must do so with the open-mindedness, levelheadedness, tact and shrewd judgment of a gracious and reasonable host and not by trying to run roughshod over visitors whose rights are guaranteed by Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations.
The feelers we are getting now is that the president has intervened in the matter, and Minister Wike subsequently announced two weeks for defaulters to pay up. Whatever happens after the two weeks grace lapses the minister must proceed with caution and let his action be guided by reason and commonsense and not by brute force and impunity.
Discussion about this post