Abuja Land Dispute: ex-military bosses lament as FG orders probe into Wike-Yerima clash
Following the fall-out between the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nyesom Wike, and A naval officer known as A. Yerima on Tuesday, the federal government has instituted a probe into the matter.
Reacting to the FG’s order, former military Generals have expressed anger over the clash between Mr. Wike and Yerima, citing allegation of land grabbing.
In disjoint interviews since Tuesday, the ex-military bosses posited that such a clash between the pair undermines the chain of command and institutional respect.
Aftermath of the incident, the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, stated that the defence ministry has started investigation into the issue, and assured that the Armed Forces are ready to back and protect any officer carrying out lawful duties.
While addressing the press to introduce activities for the 2026 Armed Forces Remembrance Day at the National Defence College (Abuja), the Minister of Defence commended Yerima on his composure and gallantry amid his stand-off with the FCT minister.
“At the ministry, and indeed the Armed Forces, we will always protect our officers on lawful duty,’’ he noted. “We are looking into this issue and assure that any officer performing his duties lawfully will be highly protected. We will not allow anything to happen to him so long as he is doing his job, and he is doing it very well.”
The clash between Wike and the naval officer emanated from a dispute over alleged unlawful land ownership guarded by some armed military personnel headed by Yerima, acting on the order of a former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Zabairy Gambo (retd.).
In an initial allegation made by Wike, it was said that the ex-CNS illicitly possessed the land. A viral clip of the clash showed how the enraged FCT minister confronted the naval officer.
Reacting to the scene, former Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, has demanded that Mr. Wike should apologise to the President Bola Tinubu, the Armed Forces and the young naval officer involved in the altercation.
Buratai further noted that Wike’s public outburst was not appropriate and equal to disregard of the armed forces.
In a post on his verified Facebook account, he said: “The events of November 11, 2025, involving the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Barrister Nyesom Wike, demand an immediate and serious response.
“His public disparagement of a uniformed officer of the Nigerian Armed Forces transcends mere misconduct; it represents a palpable threat to national security and institutional integrity.
“A minister’s verbal assault on a military officer in uniform is an act of profound indiscipline that strikes at the core of our nation’s command and control structure.
‘It deliberately undermines the chain of command, disrespects the authority of the Commander-in-Chief and grievously wounds the morale of every individual who serves under the Nigerian flag.
“Such actions erode the very foundation of discipline upon which our national security apparatus stands.”
On the other hand reacting to the clash, Brigadier General Peter Aro (retd.) said the face-off highlights the significance of regarding appropriate channel in democracy.
“The clash between Minister Wike and the young naval officer goes beyond personalities: it reflects how power should and should not be exercised in a democracy. The officer, by every account, was acting under lawful orders from his superior, the former Chief of Naval Staff; his duty was to obey the chain of command, not to improvise under political Pressure,’’ he said.
While conceding Wike’s right to raise concerns and questions over the title of the piece of land in dispute, Aro nailed the mode used by the former Rivers State governor.
“The minister, on the other hand, had every right to raise questions about land or its use, but only through lawful channels such as writing to the Minister of Defence, the Chief of Defence Staff, or approaching the courts. A public confrontation that diminishes institutional respect exposes the government’s internal disarray before the world.”
“If this episode is not publicly condemned, it sends a dangerous message to the men and women who risk their lives daily for Nigeria’s sovereignty. The military must remain disciplined, but civilian leaders must also model restraint and humility,” he added.
Another retired military General, Brigadier General Bashir Adewinbi, described the clash as ‘unacceptable.’
“I did not expect a minister to behave like that toward a commissioned officer. The military is not just any organisation; it is under the command of the President, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
“Any confrontation with a military officer is, by extension, a confrontation with the Commander-in-Chief and should not be tolerated,” he said.
Wike’s Entourage Backs Him
Following the incident, Senior Special Assistant on Public and Communications to the FCT minister, Lere Olayinka, threw a very heavy weight behind Wike’s action, describing the clash as a the result of a land scam that was traced to a former naval boss.
While invited on to Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily Programme on Wednesday, Olayinka the piece of land in dispute was allocated in 2007 for park and recreation purposes, not meant to be commercial or residential purpose.
“That particular land was allocated to a company in 2007, Santos Estate Limited, for park and recreation. The company did not do anything on the land because that place is a parkway, it’s a walkway, a road corridor. You don’t build there,” Olayinka said.
He furthered that in 2022, the company wrote to FCTA for a change of purpose, from park to commercial, but the request was rebuffed.
“In 2022, the minister of FCT declined that request. Wike was not the minister then,” he noted.
Even after the rebuff, the company went further by partitioning the land and sold in pieces to people, plus Gambo.
“Probably in anticipation of the minister’s approval for conversion, the man decided to partition the land, a land allocated to him for park and recreation.
“He now partitioned the land and sold it to people, including the former Chief of Naval Staff,” he explained. The aide also faulted the retired CNS’s response, alleging that he attempted to use military influence to assert ownership over the land.
“That is why I want to say that the Chief of Naval Staff was scammed. He has realised that he was scammed. Instead of coming out to seek help, he resorted to using military might.
“After selling land allocated to you for park and recreation, for people to build a house, who should the Chief of Naval Staff go and hold? The person who’s claiming or the government? “He chose not to hold the person or company who scammed him.”
He moved on to clarify that the disputed land located within the Mabushi area, reserved for public and corporate purpose, not for home. He added that Gambo had no valid title or approved building plan for the land.
“Again, that particular portion has now been designated for, you know, if you know Abuja very well, you know how Mabushi is.
“That is where you have the Ministry of Works environment. That portion of the land, that pathway is for public buildings and corporate buildings, not residential, meaning that you cannot build a residential house there.
“As of today, Vice Admiral Gambo does not have a document, a title document, showing that he owns the land. He does not own the land,” he added.
Mr. Olayinka stated further that: “assuming but not conceding that he has title documents and he owns the land, before you begin development of a land, there are processes you must pass through.
“One of such processes is to have a building plan, a building plan showing what you want to put on the land. And you take your building plan to the development control.
“The question Nigerians should ask Vice Admiral Gambo is, did he take his building plan on that land to the development control? And did development control approve the building plan?”
According to a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and Constitutional Law Expert, Professor Sabastine Hon, blasted Yerima for his clash with the minister, claiming that his action was a “breach of law.”
Reacting to the incident via his verified Facebook account on Wednesday, Hon nailed the naval officer’s action to stop Wike from accessing the plot of land in dispute, stating that the action would never be justified under any legal military order.
“Brushing sentiments aside, I hereby condemn in totality the actions of the Naval Officer, A.M. Yerima, who obstructed the FCT Minister from gaining access to that parcel of land, under the guise of ‘obeying superior orders.’
“The duty of a junior officer to obey the orders of his superiors, even though strongly upheld in military and paramilitary circles, has its own limitations recognised by no other authority but the Supreme Court of Nigeria,” he wrote.
He cited Supreme Court rulings in Onunze v. State (2023) 8 NWLR (Pt.
1885) 61 and Nigeria Air Force v. James (2002) 18 NWLR (Pt. 798) 295 as a case study, which he said that it is clearly stipulated that military officers are not bound to obey illegal or manifestly unjust orders.
“The illegality in that order stems primarily from the fact that no service law of the military permits a serving military officer to mount guard at the private construction site of his boss, especially under suspicious circumstances like this,” he stated.
He stressed that if security concerns existed, “the retired Naval Officer ought, under the circumstances, to have engaged the civil police.” Hon further stressed that Wike exercises the powers of the President over land administration in Abuja, pursuant to sections 297(2) and other provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
“By section 302 of the same Constitution, read together with other extant Acts of the National Assembly, the President of Nigeria has delegated all powers with respect to land administration in the FCT Abuja to the minister.
“Going by constitutional and administrative law, therefore, Mr Wike stood in loco of the President of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces on that fateful day.
“Consequently, even if the superior officer were still in service, he would not disobey Mr Wike or obstruct him from entering the land. This was an affront to the civil authority of Mr President.”
As he admitted that the minster’s approach may be brash, he stated that Wike’s action “is legal and lawful in all respects.’’
“Rather, it is the officer who obstructed him that has breached not just the Nigerian Constitution, but also service and extant regulatory laws.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, section 114 of the Armed Forces Act makes military personnel criminally liable for civil offences.
“This means the officer in question could be arraigned before a Court Martial for obstructing a public officer from performing his public duties, et cetera,” he added.
The professor in law warned against commending the young naval officer’s misconduct, saying that tolerating such uncivil act could encourage more security personnel to disregard civil authority.
“If such intolerable conduct by the young officer is not punished or is celebrated, this may unleash a reign of terror by the men in khaki against hapless civilians — with a grin or boast that ‘we did it to Wike and nothing happened,’” he concluded.
In the perspective of another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Simon Lough, Wike acted within his jurisdiction as the President’s representative in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), but queried the propriety of his visit to the disputed land.
According to Lough, “Legally, a minister, in this case being Nyesom Wike, is a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, appointed by the President to exercise powers vested in him by the Constitution in the Federal Capital Territory. Whatever action the minister takes is presumed to be an act of the President.”
Lough put forward that, by virtue of the Constitution and the FCT Act, Federal Government owns all land in the FCT .
“The President, through the provisions of the law, delegates the management of all FCT lands to the Minister,” he stated.
He cited several Supreme Court decisions affirming that only the FCT Minister has the authority to allocate or grant titles to land in the territory.
The retired deputy commissioner of police argued that while the minister was empowered to inspect any land in the FCT, his physical presence at the site was unnecessary.
“He undermined his office. As a minister representing the President, he should have directed an official correspondence or investigation instead of personally going to the location,” he pointed out.
SAN Lough added that if the ex-CNS had purchased the land through illicit means, the Wike would have formally written to the Chief of Defence Staff or the appropriate authority to look into the issue.
He then claimed that soldiers’ presence at the disputed land raises questions of legality.
“The issue is whether that duty was a legal one. A soldier swears an oath to defend the Constitution and the territorial integrity of Nigeria, not to guard a private property belonging to a retired officer,” Lough observed.
“He nonetheless faulted both sides, saying the situation could have been handled more prudently.
“Though the minister may have overreacted, the officer conducted himself maturely. Everyone involved bears some responsibility,” he said.
In the view of another SAN, who preferred his identity shielded, nailed Wike’s action, stating that it was not befitting of an senior public officer of his calibre.
“I do not agree with his behaviour. How can you openly call a military officer a fool? Even if the soldier was in the wrong, two wrongs do not make a right,” he said.
He claimed that the FCT minister should have adopted legal option rather than resort to “self-help.”
“The law prescribes procedures for reclaiming or repossessing land. A minister, even acting as the President’s delegate, cannot take the law into his hands. The officer could have sued him for assault.”
Also reacting is Abuja-based counsel and Human Rights advocate, Pelumi Olajengbesi, questioned if Mr. Wike had any legal authority to command or intimidate a military personnel.
Olajengbesi quoted that under the Nigerian 1999 Constitution (as amended), the command and operational use of the Armed Forces rest exclusively with the President as Commander-in-Chief, exercised through the military chain of command and not through any civilian minister.
“The Armed Forces Act vests day-to-day command in the Chief of Defence Staff and the Service Chiefs. A soldier on duty takes orders only from superior officers, not from any minister,” he stated.
He posited that even as the FCT minister acting under the delegate of the president in civil administration, such legislation does not stretch to military command.
“No minister can lawfully countermand a soldier’s orders or issue binding instructions to an officer on duty,” he asserted.
He claimed that although the FCT minister is in charge of land administration, any issue with military personnel should be addressed by the through the appropriate channel by the president, not through confrontation.
“Such behaviour is reckless, primitive, and an abuse of office,” he said.
He issued a warning that public officer holders should note that the law grants no immunity to ministers who act arbitrarily.
“A minister who intimidates or obstructs an officer on lawful duty can be investigated and prosecuted like any other citizen,” Olajengbesi declared.
In conclusion, he implored the government to look into the clash decisively, curtailing the unchecked excesses by public office holders which might degenerate into future brawls between civilians and the military.
“The Constitution draws a clear line; ministers handle civil administration while the President, through the military chain of command, controls the troops. A soldier answers to his commanders, not politicians.”
