{"id":177148,"date":"2025-09-01T18:25:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality"},"modified":"2025-09-01T19:35:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T18:35:46","slug":"wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality","title":{"rendered":"Wike Responds to Atiku Obi on Rivers LG Poll Legality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has replied Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, stressing that the court has not declared the Rivers State local government election illegal.<\/p>\n<p>Atiku and Obi had in separate statements described the exercise as unlawful.<\/p>\n<p>Wike, while speaking during a media parley on Monday, said the polls were legally conducted and commended by many for being free and fair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cListen, I don\u2019t blame Atiku; he didn\u2019t know that his boss signed the emergency rule in 2004. If he knew, if he was obedient and working along with his boss, who was President Olusegun Obasanjo, he would have known that the President has the power to make regulations for the governance of emergency areas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, he was not in tune. He doesn\u2019t know, and as I said, what you don\u2019t know, don\u2019t comment about it. If Atiku had comments about Customs, I know he has worked in Customs. I can give it to him, but this is law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The minister added that Obi lacked the moral right to speak about the conduct of elections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow take Peter Obi. He said rascality. Who can be more [of a] rascal than Obi? Obi was the governor of Anambra State for eight years. He conducted local government elections two months before he left office \u2014 eight years as governor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has replied Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, stressing that the court has not declared the Rivers State local government election illegal. Atiku and Obi had in separate statements described the exercise as unlawful. Wike, while speaking during a media parley on Monday, said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":177147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[316,69,254,4891,421],"class_list":["post-177148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-atiku","tag-court","tag-nigeria","tag-obi","tag-rivers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Wike Responds to Atiku Obi on Rivers LG Poll Legality - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has replied Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, stressing that th ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wike Responds to Atiku Obi on Rivers LG Poll Legality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has replied Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, stressing that th ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-01T17:25:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-01T18:35:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1756739316.284187.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Wike Responds to Atiku Obi on Rivers LG Poll Legality\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-01T17:25:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-01T18:35:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality\"},\"wordCount\":247,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1756739316.284187.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Atiku\",\"court\",\"Nigeria\",\"Obi\",\"Rivers\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/wike-responds-to-atiku-obi-on-rivers-lg-poll-legality\",\"name\":\"Wike Responds to Atiku Obi on Rivers LG Poll Legality - 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