The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has clarified comments made by FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, during a recent media chat, insisting that his controversial remark about Seun Okinbaloye was figurative and not a threat.
In a statement issued on April 4, 2026, the Minister’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka, said the comment had been widely misinterpreted.
“The Minister never meant that he will shoot Seun Okinbaloye. They even spoke on phone today, and he (Okinbaloye) understood what the minister meant,” Olayinka stated.
He explained that the Minister’s remark was made in frustration over what he perceived as a shift in the journalist’s role during the interview.
“What the minister meant, which he made clear during the media chat, was that he was angry seeing Okinbaloye, whom he holds in high esteem as a journalist, descending into the political arena by speaking as an interested party, instead of an interviewer,” he said.
According to him, the statement was expressed in a hyperbolic manner and carried no literal intent.
“The statement made by the Minister was in hyperbolic context, which was clearly without intent. It was primarily using exaggeration to make a point,” Olayinka added.
He further noted that the Minister had immediately clarified his position during the live broadcast, stressing that he did not mean any physical harm.
“Even after the Minister made the clarifications on the live television programme… all the journalists who were interviewing him just laughed,” he said.
Olayinka warned against what he described as deliberate misrepresentation of the comment, urging the public to disregard attempts to politicise the issue.
“After the Minister’s detailed explanations… it will become a clear hatchet job for any individual or group to pick the statement out of context and make any issue out of it,” he stated.
“The public is therefore urged to discontenance the use of the comment as instrument of blackmail and propaganda by those whose intent is to misrepresent facts for their political gains.”
