The new Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has stated that leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) approved the ministerial appointment given to him by President Bola Tinubu.
The former Rivers governor at his press briefing on Monday confirmed this, shortly after he and 44 others were sworn in as ministers in Abuja following their appointments.
SaharaReporters earlier reported that Wike threatened that houses built at illegal locations in Abuja to distort the city's master plan would be demolished irrespective of the position of its owner.
Wike had said, “All those people who are distorting the masterplan of Abuja, too bad. If you know you have built where you are not supposed to build, it will go down.”
Before his appointment by the president, there had been moves by some members of the PDP for the suspension of the former governor over his association with members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his acceptance of the ministerial offer.
But Wike said he wrote to leaders of his party, including Iliya Damagum, the acting chairman of the PDP, and got their approval to be part of Tinubu’s cabinet.
“They said they’ll sanction me that I took an appointment — that’s ridiculous,” he said.
“The president wrote to all the 36 state governors to bring names of people to appoint. Didn’t PDP governors submit names? Every PDP governor wrote a letter and nominated 10 persons for appointment in this (Tinubu’s) government.
“Before this appointment came, I wrote to the national party chairman, minority leader of the house of representatives and senate, zonal chairman of the party, my state chairman, and my governor.
“All of them wrote me back: ‘Accept it’. I have it in evidence documented.”
The PDP has been embroiled in a protracted internal crisis which has polarised the party.
The opposition party’s situation worsened in June last year after Wike lost the PDP presidential ticket to Atiku Abubakar.