Prime Business Africa
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned FCT Minister Nyesom Wike’s actions, which allegedly undermined Saturday’s local council polls in Abuja. HURIWA expressed concern that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu seems unable to control his minister, allowing Wike to allegedly disregard citizens’ rights.
The rights group cited several grievances, including Wike’s imposition of a curfew from 8 pm Friday to 6 pm Saturday, which allegedly hindered voters’ access to polling units. HURIWA also accused Wike of deploying security personnel to intimidate voters and manipulate the outcome in favor of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
HURIWA questioned Wike’s role in the election, pointing out he’s not a registered voter in Abuja. The group condemned INEC’s alleged failure to ensure a fair process, citing Wike’s statement urging voters to “do your own on Saturday and leave the rest for me” as evidence of electoral interference.
HURIWA spoke against the backdrop of the extensively reported low voters turn-out during the Abuja council polls just as the group said that the Minister also abused his office and violated the constitutional provision that prohibited abuse of power by deploying a massive scale of military and policing troops to move around the polling units during the poll.
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The Rights group remarked that it is notorious that the Minister Wike is not a registered voter in Abuja and so acted on Saturday as an executive interloper to have used the cloak of his office as a Federal minister to manipulate the outcome of the poll for the All Progressives Congress all in his warped pursuit of a self-serving efforts to please president Tinubu by ensuring that INEC predetermined that tje results favours the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a media statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, HURIWA said that the minister took a number of illegal, unconstitutional, draconian and anti-democratic measures all in his desperation to rig the council poll for All Progressives Congress even when he still masquerades about the courts of Nigeria through his political surrogates abd hirelings as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party even as the Rights group listed the illegal declaration of a long curfew from 8 pm on Friday to Saturday 6 pm as one of those measures that made it existentially impossible and impractical, impracticable for registered Abuja voters to move around to their polling units to vote giving the high and provocative presence of and security personnel that converted the local council poll that had always held unnoticed and peacefully in over 30 years to a huge political warfare and as a war against the democratic right of Nigerian voters who were physically stopped from accessing their polling units to vote.
The Rights group said that singular and despicable, infamous, unpopular and unconstitutional curfew deprived and denied registered voters from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights as voters. HURIWA condemned the silence of President Tinubu even as his minister misused the military and police operatives to intimidate voters out of the polling units given that most registered voters were allocated polling units arbitrarily by INEC far away from their places of abodes even when they registered near their homes just as the Rights group said in over 30 years voters simply drive to the polling units to exercise their democratic franchise but that wasn’t the case yesterday because Minister Wike who was moving about in military and police convoy to influence the outcome of the local council poll, used an illegal curfew imposed vigorously by anti-democratic forces in military and police uniforms to scare voters away from their assigned polling units.
“We in HURIWA Blames the President for not controlling his misbehaving minister of FCT who openly told All Progressives Congress members to vote and allow him to do the rest even when it was few hours to the council election just as the Rights group said this widely publicised unconstitutional statement was interpreted to mean that the votes of the registered voters in FCT wouldn’t count if they opted to vote against the All Progressives Congress since the minister who was all over the FCT with military and police convoy has promised somehow to influence the outcome of the council poll and this media statement encouraged massive voters apathy during the poll coupled with the illegally imposed restrictions on free movement of Abuja registered voters.
“We in the organised civil Rights community in Nigeria condemns the officials of INEC for allowing the minister of FCT to do whatever he wanted to do to undermine and influence the outcome of the council poll. This illegality tolerated by INEC shows that Professor Amupitan is incompetent and is totally not in control of INEC.
HURIWA accused the FCT minister of undermining the credibility and integrity of the local council poll and rubbished the so-called neutrality of INEC when the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, issued a pointed message to voters ahead of the just held Area Council elections in FCT on Saturday, February 21, 2026.
Wike delivered the remarks during an All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign rally in Apo District of Abuja on Thursday, where he addressed a large crowd of APC supporters while urging support for Christopher Zakka Maikalangu, the APC candidate for the AMAC chairmanship election.
“I came here to tell you, if you do for me, I’ll do for you, if you love me, I’ll love you. Push me, I’ll push you. Let me tell you, the chairman has read out what you should do, let me tell you, do your own on Saturday and leave the other ones for me. All those politicians that tell you stories, I’m not one of them. I am a talk and do person,” Wike said.
He also highlighted the importance of electing leaders who would maintain a cooperative relationship with his office.
“I told Maikalangu, that you have to vote for somebody that can talk to me and I will listen, don’t vote for somebody that when I go left, he’ll go right, if I go front, he’ll go back.”
The statements came just a couple of days before the FCT Area Council elections scheduled for Saturday, February 21, when residents will vote six Area Council Chairmen of Abaji, AMAC, Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje, and Kwali, and Councillors of 62 Wards.
HURIWA said the statement by Wike showed that there is nothing credible about the Independent National Electoral Commission especially since the INEC Chairman failed to rebuke the minister openly and to reassure Nigerians about the neutrality and independence of the election management body.
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