The appointment of Joash Amupitan as Nigeria’s new INEC Chairman has deepened the growing rift between the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, further exposing the fragile alliance at the heart of the administration.
According to insider accounts, the disagreement has become so severe that Wike boycotted the Council of State meeting in protest, sending the Minister of State for the FCT in his place.
He is also believed to have reached out to several former Nigerian Heads of State, urging them to stay away from the meeting, a move that widened the cracks already visible within Tinubu’s inner circle.
Wike’s political decline began shortly after human rights activist Omoyele Sowore publicly exposed his undeclared real estate holdings in Florida, USA.
These revelations sent shockwaves through his family and political network. Before the exposé, Wike had just returned from a medical trip to the UK, where he reportedly received treatment for a heart infection.
Energized and combative, he resumed his long-standing feud with Governor Sim Fubara, his political protégé-turned-adversary, after orchestrating efforts that removed him from office for 6 months.
However, Wike’s renewed confidence soon crumbled. During one of his public tirades, he threatened Sowore for calling President Tinubu “a criminal,” a remark Sowore made on social media in response to Tinubu’s infamous statement in Brazil that there was “no corruption in Nigeria.”
Wike’s arrogant claim that Sowore was “lucky Tinubu believes in the rule of law” and would one day encounter someone who did not only inflamed the activist’s resolve.
The confrontation prompted Sowore to release damning evidence of Wike’s corruptly acquired foreign and hidden local assets, igniting widespread outrage and drawing the attention of the Presidency itself.
In the aftermath, Tinubu’s trusted advisers began to reassess Wike’s role in government, concluding that he had become too erratic and politically toxic to be trusted with sensitive national matters.
Wike had reportedly pushed hard for Justice Abdullahi Muhammad Liman, a justice of the Court of Appeal, to be appointed as INEC Chairman.
He secured clearances for him through several security agencies, confident that Tinubu would approve.
But following mounting skepticism within the Presidency, Liman’s candidacy was quietly dropped. SaharaReporters learnt that Liman and Wike are so close that he once blocked security agencies from searching his house in 2016.
Tinubu instead appointed Joash Amupitan, a lawyer and legal scholar from the University of Jos. Tinubu is said to have told close aides that Wike was “too unstable and untrustworthy” to influence the leadership of Nigeria’s electoral body.
The breakdown of trust soon extended to media control and censorship. After Governor Fubara’s reinstatement, Tinubu reportedly ordered Wike to suspend his monthly media briefings, arguing that his combative tone was damaging the administration’s image.
Furious, Wike appealed to Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, warning that silencing him would only “make Sowore too powerful.”
The exchange reflected the degree to which Sowore’s exposés had undermined Wike’s standing within the Presidency.
Amid the turmoil, Wike allegedly approached the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to amend his asset declaration, seeking to include the properties exposed in Florida and elsewhere.
But officials reportedly told him that the original documents had been forwarded to the EFCC, leaving him politically vulnerable and deeply unsettled and betrayed.
His growing frustration culminated in Thursday’s Council of State meeting, where most former Heads of State conspicuously boycotted the session.
Presidency insiders suggest Wike played a role in orchestrating the boycott to demonstrate his displeasure with the appointment of Amupitan.
According to sources, the meeting’s agenda initially made no mention of an INEC appointment, but Tinubu allegedly sprung a surprise by asking the Governor of Kogi State, Ahmed Ododo, to present Amupitan for confirmation.
Caught off guard, attendees had no choice but to endorse the appointment.
The unfolding drama marks a new phase in the uneasy relationship between Tinubu and Wike. What began as a strategic alliance built on mutual political convenience has now morphed into a cold war of influence, suspicion, and retribution.
