The viral confrontation between FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and Lieutenant A. M. Yerima, while publicly criticized for its tone, was fundamentally a lawful act by the highest civil authority over Abuja land challenging the illegal use of armed military personnel to defend a documented instance of land-grabbing.
Full footage of the heated exchange between the FCT Minister Wike and a Naval officer of a land dispute in Abuja
pic.twitter.com/yiKHBtgImA— Instablog9ja (@instablog9ja) November 12, 2025
By Nij Martin
The video was explosive. A visibly enraged Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), in a heated face-off with a calm but defiant naval officer, Lieutenant A. M. Yerima. The minister’s words, “you are a very big fool,” echoed across social media, instantly polarizing public opinion. Former military generals have expressed outrage, with ex-Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai demanding a public apology, asserting that Wike’s conduct “undermines the chain of command and institutional respect.”
The instinct to side with the uniformed officer is understandable. The military represents discipline and service, and a civilian minister’ public dressing-down of a junior officer feels instinctively wrong. However, a deeper analysis of the legal and constitutional facts reveals a more complex truth: while his temperament was unquestionably flawed, Minister Wike’s fundamental position in this clash was on remarkably solid ground. This incident is not merely about personality but about the critical principle of civilian oversight and the rule of law.
The Core of the Dispute: A Land Grabbing Scam
To understand the confrontation, one must first look past the shouting and examine the land itself. According to Wike’s aide, Lere Olayinka, the disputed Plot 1946 in Gaduwa District was “allocated to a company in 2007, Santos Estate Limited, for park and recreation.” This is crucial. The land was designated for public use—a parkway or walkway—not for private residential development.
Olayinka further clarified that in 2022, the company applied for a change of land use, which was declined. Despite this rejection, “the man decided to partition the land, a land allocated to him for park and recreation. He now partitioned the land and sold it to people, including the former Chief of Naval Staff [Vice Admiral Awwal Zubairu Gambo (retd.)].” From the FCTA’s perspective, this was a classic land scam, and the retired CNS was a victim who then attempted to use military might to validate a fraudulent claim. Olayinka stated pointedly, “As of today, Vice Admiral Gambo does not have a document, a title document, showing that he owns the land. He does not own the land.”
The Constitutional Authority of the FCT Minister
This is where the legal argument tilts decisively in Wike’s favor. The FCT is not a state; it is federal territory directly under the presidency. The 1999 Constitution vests extraordinary power over its lands in the President, who delegates this authority to the FCT Minister.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria and constitutional law expert, Prof. Sebastine Hon, provided a devastatingly clear legal analysis. He stressed that “Wike exercises the powers of the President over land administration in Abuja, pursuant to sections 297(2) and other provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).” He drove the point home unequivocally: “By section 302 of the same Constitution, read together with other extant Acts of the National Assembly, the President of Nigeria has delegated all powers with respect to land administration in the FCT Abuja to the minister… Going by constitutional and administrative law, therefore, Mr Wike stood in loco of the President of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces on that fateful day.”
This framing is vital. While the officer saw a civilian minister, the law saw the direct representative of the Commander-in-Chief carrying out a lawful duty: investigating an illegal development on public land.
The Illegality of the “Superior Order”
The defense of Lieutenant Yerima and his superiors hinges on him “acting on lawful orders from his principal.” However, prominent legal minds have dismantled this argument. Prof. Hon cited Supreme Court rulings which “clearly established that military officers are not bound to obey illegal or manifestly unjust orders.”
He then asked the pivotal question: “The illegality in that order stems primarily from the fact that no service law of the military permits a serving military officer to mount guard at the private construction site of his boss, especially under suspicious circumstances like this.” Another SAN, Simon Lough, echoed this, observing, “The issue is whether that duty was a legal one. A soldier swears an oath to defend the Constitution and the territorial integrity of Nigeria, not to guard a private property belonging to a retired officer.”
The officer’s duty, however professionally executed, was fundamentally outside the scope of his constitutional mandate. He was not protecting a naval base or critical national infrastructure; he was acting as a private security guard for a retired officer’s personal property, a property with a clouded and likely illegitimate title.
Temperament vs. Principle: A Necessary Distinction
Critics of Wike’s approach are not without merit. His use of insults was undignified and counterproductive. As one anonymous lawyer noted, “How can you openly call a military officer a fool? Even if the soldier was in the wrong, two wrongs do not make a right.” Simon Lough also argued that the minister undermined his office by personally visiting the site, suggesting official correspondence would have been more prudent.
However, conflating the minister’s poor temperament with the legality of his actions is a critical error. The core question is not whether Wike was polite, but whether he was right. Prof. Hon, while acknowledging the method was brash, concluded definitively: “Rather, it is the officer who obstructed him that has breached not just the Nigerian Constitution, but also service and extant regulatory laws.” He warned that failing to address this “may unleash a reign of terror by the men in khaki against hapless civilians — with a grin or boast that ‘we did it to Wike and nothing happened.’”
Finally: Upholding Civil Authority
The outrage from retired generals is predictable; it defends institutional pride. But the rule of law must supersede institutional sensitivity. This incident was a collision between an alleged act of land grabbing, enabled by the misuse of military personnel, and a minister constitutionally empowered to stop it.
Minister Wike, as the representative of the President, had every right to be on that land and to demand an end to an illegal development. The naval officer, however composed, was participating in an operation that had no legal basis. While a more diplomatic approach from Wike could have de-escalated the situation, it does not negate the fundamental legality of his mission. The real scandal is not a minister’s harsh words, but the culture of impunity that allows retired officials to use active-duty soldiers to fence off public land as their private fiefdom. In defending his constitutional mandate against this, Nyesom Wike, for all his bluster, was on the side of the law.