‘I’m older than you’ — Ireti Kingibe asks Wike to apologise over ‘hang on transformer’ comment

Ireti Kingibe, senator representing the nation’s capital, says she is willing to work with Nyesom Wike, minister of the federal capital territory (FCT), if he apologises to her.

Kingibe, a member of the Labour Party (LP), defeated Philip Aduda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 general election.

Aduda, an ally of Wike, was a senator from 2011 to 2023.

Kingibe and Wike have not had a good working relationship since they assumed their respective offices.

Speaking at the flag-off of the Mabushi bus terminal in Abuja earlier in July, the minister threatened that Kingibe would lose the support of FCT residents in the 2027 elections.

Wike also told the senator to hang herself on a transformer if she was unhappy with his performance in the FCT.

Reacting to the minister’s comments in an interview on Channels TV’s Political Paradigm, Kingibe said Wike does not understand the concept of leadership of the FCT.

“He doesn’t obviously understand the concept of the FCT. If he did, it is nothing personal,” she said.

“He says, ‘I don’t want to be her friend.’ How does governance translate into friendship?

“I don’t know how friendship enters into the discussion.

“Well, I’m actually willing to do everything to work with the minister of the federal capital territory as long as he apologises first for saying, I should go and hang on a transformer.

“Once he does that, it’s all over. We can start afresh. But until then, everybody stays in your lane.

“With all due respect, I’m so much older than him. Even just courtesy demands that he shouldn’t speak to me like that. And I am also elected by the people. I did not get up from my sitting room and said, here I am.

“So I will look for another medium to communicate with the minister. That does not necessarily mean directly since, obviously, he has expressed his disregard for the office of the senator.

“He doesn’t know me. I had never met him before he became minister; he’d never seen me in his life. So obviously there’s nothing personal. It’s just the office, he objects to.”