The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has stated that he is not interested in any form of friendship with the Senator representing the FCT, Ireti Kingibe.

Wike lambasted the Senator, accusing her of blackmailing him instead of communicating her problems through the right channels or better still focusing on her oversight functions.

The former Rivers Governor stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja, stating that the lawmaker is aggrieved because the Senate President snubbed her for the position of the Senate Committee on FCT.

“I don’t want to be personal…she’s the Senator for FCT. She went around saying ‘oh, oh Wike is busy scraping roads…I should leave the roads till when the potholes come?” Wike said.

“Somebody wants to be your friend and you say ‘I don’t want to be your friend. Is it by force?’ The problem is that she wanted to be Chairman, Senate Committee on FCT and the Senate President said ‘I’m not giving you’.

‘What are you going to supervise me? You cannot supervise me. What is her interest, that I must see her? If I have a problem I’ll go and see her. I don’t have a problem. Nobody can intimidate me.

“Look, I was a Minister before. I became a governor of one of the most important states in Nigeria and she thinks that the only way you can bring me is to go to Channel, TVC, saying the Minister is not carrying me along.

“I don’t have the back to carry. It’s not about blackmailing. Do the right thing. You know her problem? She ran election with my friend Philip Aduda and she sees me taking Philip everywhere instead of her being the Senator. Should I abandon my friend because she failed election?” Wike queried.

Meanwhile, a former spokesman of the defunct Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign Council, Daniel Bwala, said Nigeria must be safe and secure before the 2027 general elections.

Bwala stated this in an interview on Arise Television on Friday.

The former spokesperson commended President Bola Tinubu for the intervention of his administration.

Bwala, however, said he had no regret joining the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

He said, “I have no regret going to PDP or supporting Atiku, I do my things based on conviction and at the end of the day, if it doesn’t work out, I accept my fate.

“The reality I have accepted now is that this politicking is gone and because of the crisis in Nigeria, the only way we can have a 2027 election is when Nigeria is safe and secure.

“I saw that this president I supported in APC is trying to ensure he rewrites the wrongs of the past administration.

“When he said he wanted all opposition to come together for nation building, I felt it was the right time to look at nation’s building rather than politicking. There must be a Nigeria before we do politics.”