A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party and Convener of The Alternative, Segun Sowunmi, has rejected suggestions that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, is acting on a singular directive from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Sowunmi made the remarks during an interview on Symfoni TV on Saturday, February 28, 2026, after being asked whether some believe Wike is operating under a specific presidential mandate: “I know the president more than Wike. He probably started interacting with the president. I’ve been interacting with president since 1994. President is not that kind of person. Bola is not that kind of person.”
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He dismissed the notion that the president requires individuals to carry out personal political missions on his behalf: “Asiwaju is not that kind of person that needs you to come to do anything. More than likely they are the ones that will even be running on the floor, rolling on the floor trying to show him that they are more loyal to him than even his own biological children.”
Sowunmi described the president as strategic and deliberate in his political engagements: “That’s the kind of fellow he is. He plans for disappointment. He plans his own game. He works very hard. He puts his money where his mouth is. He ensures that he has science on his side. He wakes up at night thinking about all the important thing. He knows his own pathway.”
Referencing past elections, Sowunmi pointed to the president’s political trajectory: “Don’t forget in 2011 he took a pathway. They didn’t succeed. In 2015, he took a pathway. They succeeded.”
He noted that electoral victories were achieved without reliance on certain regions: “And when they succeeded in 2015, he didn’t include Rivers. Neither did he include the south south. Neither did he include the southeast. And when he wanted to do a re-election for Buhari, he still didn’t include Rivers. He still didn’t include the southeast. And he got a re-election.”
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Sowunmi added that similar patterns were evident in the president’s own electoral victory: “Now he’s doing he’s won his own election. Yeah. And when he was trying to win his election, he did not include the southeast. It included only a small part of the south-south, but he did not include and he still won.”