Social Democratic Party presidential candidate Adewole Adebayo says he would find a place in his cabinet for Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, but only on one condition: that the minister says a great deal less in public.
Speaking in an interview with Symfoni, Adebayo offered an assessment that resists the usual partisan script. He rated Wike the strongest performer in President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet, credited him with visible results in Abuja, and then described his approach to politics as a poor model for the country. Both judgments came in the same breath.
“If I was in my own government, I can appoint Wike, but I’ll put a little tape in his mouth,” Adebayo said, according to Vanguard, which first reported the interview. The remark was echoed in other Nigerian outlets on the same day.
The praise was specific. “I respect Wike for one thing: that he has a good work ethic. He can work,” Adebayo said. He argued that earlier FCT ministers delivered considerably less, and that Nigeria’s infrastructure picture would look different if commissioners for works in the 36 states matched Wike’s output. As a resident of the capital himself, he said movement around the city and daily life had improved because projects were actually being executed.
That endorsement came with a caveat Adebayo did not hide. He accepted that contracts under the minister may be inflated and that value for money may be lacking, while maintaining that work is nonetheless getting done. It is a distinction worth noting: a claim about visible output is not the same as a claim about cost efficiency, and Adebayo made no attempt to merge the two.
His criticism turned on conduct rather than delivery. He called Wike a bad example for Nigerian politics because of what he described as the glorification of force and state power, and expressed hope the minister would come to understand that power is temporary and that a civilised society is the better alternative, before circumstances teach that lesson for him. Adebayo also pressed the media to stop inviting Wike to comment on matters beyond the FCT, saying journalists reduce the minister to a “clown” by collecting money and broadcasting remarks that lower the dignity of his office. Support for the President, he suggested, should be offered privately rather than through public theatrics. His broader worry was generational: that a style built on force and confrontational language teaches young Nigerians that this is how democratic politics is done.
Context matters here. Wike, a former governor of Rivers State who served two terms from 2015 to 2023, was appointed FCT minister in 2023 and has become one of the most quoted figures in the administration, frequently commenting on national political disputes well outside his portfolio. Adebayo’s complaint is therefore less about any single statement than about a pattern of public engagement that has defined the minister’s tenure.
The interview ranged beyond Wike. Adebayo accused the Tinubu administration of intellectual dishonesty, poor personnel choices, and what he characterised as an illusion about the real worth of rising revenue figures. He singled out the chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, an office held by Zacch Adedeji since 2023, accusing him of gaslighting Nigerians with claims of improved allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee while purchasing power collapses.
That argument sits on top of a real set of numbers. FAAC distributions have climbed substantially since the removal of petrol subsidy and the unification of the exchange rate in 2023. In June 2026, FAAC shared N2.3 trillion among the three tiers of government from revenue generated in May, up from N2.257 trillion the previous month, according to the Federal Ministry of Finance. In January 2026, the figure was N1.969 trillion. The dispute between government and its critics is not about whether nominal allocations have grown, but about what that growth is worth once inflation and the weaker naira are accounted for. Adebayo’s position falls firmly on the second side of that argument, and remains an interpretation rather than a settled finding.
On the Osun State governorship election, Adebayo credited the President with political skill in managing an internal All Progressives Congress conflict, while rejecting the idea that the outcome represented democratic restraint or a genuine defeat of federal power. He pointed to lives lost, the absence of a credible third force, and the willingness of hundreds of thousands of voters to back the APC despite economic strain. He was blunt about state governors who, in his account, invaded Osun during the campaign, calling their conduct thuggish and beneath the dignity of high public office.
The election he was discussing was held on 15 August 2026. INEC declared incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke, contesting on the Accord Party platform after leaving the Peoples Democratic Party, the winner with 511,067 votes against 444,815 for the APC’s Bola Oyebamiji, a margin of 66,252 votes. Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress polled 17,180. Adeleke won 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas.
Adebayo, a lawyer and founder of KAFTAN TV, polled 80,267 votes in the 2023 presidential election, roughly 0.33 per cent of the total, according to INEC’s declared results, figures he has since publicly dismissed as unreliable. He was returned as the SDP’s presidential nominee for 2027 in May 2026. His closing point in the interview was that competence alone is not the standard he would apply to public office. Capable people who deliver, he said, must also show restraint and respect for democratic norms.