The Atiku Media Office on Saturday condemned as dangerous the threat issued by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, against frontline journalist and broadcaster, Seun Okinbaloye.
The minister during a live television interview on Friday in Abuja expressed his wish to shoot the journalist over a professional opinion.
The Atiku media office described the Minister’s outburst as not “just reckless—it is a chilling signal of how far this government has descended into intolerance, lawlessness, and naked abuse of power.This was not a joke. It was not banter. It was a threat—clear, direct, and deeply sinister.”
It said Nigerians should be under no illusion when those entrusted with authority begin to speak the language of violence against the press, democracy itself is under attack.
Minister Wike’s outburst, it further said, is not an isolated slip but a symptom of a broader, more dangerous pattern under the administration of President Bola Tinubu—a pattern where dissent is criminalised, criticism is met with hostility, and intimidation has become the default language of governance.
In sane democracies, such a statement would trigger immediate resignation or dismissal. In today’s Nigeria, it is becoming frighteningly routine.
“What crime did Mr. Okinbaloye commit? He dared to warn against the creeping danger of a one-party state. For this, a minister of the republic responded not with reason, but with a threat of violence. Nothing captures the current state of governance more starkly, it said, adding that, “this is how democracies die—not only through stolen mandates or weakened institutions, but through the gradual normalisation of threats, fear, and the silencing of independent voices.
“We must ask: if a prominent journalist can be threatened so brazenly on national television, what protection exists for the ordinary Nigerian?”
The Atiku Media Office states urged the FCT Minister to tender an immediate and unconditional public apology from Nyesom Wike to Seun Okinbaloye and the entire Nigerian media community and a clear and public repudiation of this dangerous rhetoric by the Federal Government administration of Bola Tinubu as well as
Concrete assurances for the safety and protection of journalists across Nigeria.
“Anything short of this will confirm what many Nigerians already fear—that this government is not merely intolerant of dissent, but increasingly comfortable with the language and instruments of repression.Nigeria will not be bullied into silence. The press will not be cowed, and truth will not be silenced by threats, no matter how powerful or highly placed those behind them,” the Atiku media office said.
