A pro-democracy advocacy group on the aegis of Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has declared that the actions of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, before and during the conduct of Saturday’s Area Council elections, clearly rubbished the independence and neutrality of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
HURIWA particularly noted that undemocratic and unguarded statements credited to Wike few days to the FCT Area Council elections on who residents must vote in the six Area Councils was despicable, stressing that the refusal and or failure of the INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan to rebuke him and call him to order, clearly showed that there is nothing credible left concerning the Commission.
This was as the Rights group condemned what it described as “the brazen anti-democratic antics displayed by Wike which adversely undermined the February 21, 2026, Area Council elections in the Territory.
HURIWA particularly expressed concern that Wike used his official position as the Minister of the FCT to coax INEC for a predetermined results of the FCT Area Council elections in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
HURIWA also said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has demonstrated that he is afraid of Wike, who is his appointee.
These were contained in a statement by Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator, in which he stated that President Tinubu, who is constitutionally the political head of Abuja, allowed Wike to run roughshod on the human rights of citizens residing in the FCT.
According to HURIWA; “Wike treats Abuja residents with scorn and absolute disrespect, but the appointing authority who by the provision of the constitution is the President of Nigeria, doesn’t care and has lost control of his minister who is a lawyer, but undermines the constitutional rights of citizens anyhow.
“We don’t know what kind of secret oath both the president and the Minister have sworn to that is keeping President Tinubu from decisively controlling his appointees. How can an appointee be stronger than the appointing authority?” Onwubiko asked.
HURIWA which spoke against the backdrop of the reported low voters turn-out during the Abuja Council polls, said that Wike 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.
The rights group pointedly said that it is notorious fact that Wike is not a registered voter in Abuja, thus acted as an executive interloper by using the cloak of his office as a Federal minister to manipulate the outcome of FCT Area Council elections for the All Progressives Congress “all in his warped pursuit of a self-serving efforts to please President Tinubu”.
HURIWA further said that the FCT minister took a number of illegal, unconstitutional, draconian and anti-democratic measures all in his desperation to rig the Are Council elections for All Progressives Congress even when he still masquerades about in the courts through his political surrogates and hirelings as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The Rights group particularly listed the illegal declaration of a curfew from 8:00 pm on Friday to Saturday 6 pm as one of the measures that made it existentially impossible and impractical, impracticable for registered voters to move around to their polling units to vote giving the high and provocative presence of security personnel that converted the Area Council elections that had taken place unnoticed and peacefully in over 30 years to a huge political warfare and war against the democratic rights of Nigerian voters who were stopped from accessing their polling units to vote.
HURIWA said’ “That singular and despicable, infamous, unpopular and unconstitutional curfew deprived and denied registered voters from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights as voters”.
HURIWA therefore condemned the silence of President Tinubu as his minister misused the military and police operatives to intimidate voters out of the polling units.
HURIWA also noted that as part of the plot to prevent registered voters from carrying out their civic responsibilities, some of them were allocated polling units arbitrarily by INEC far away from their places of abodes even when they registered near their homes.
It said; “In over 30 years, voters simply drive to the polling units to exercise their democratic franchise, but that wasn’t the case on Saturday, 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”.
