The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has said he is ready to give the African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and other opposition candidates in the upcoming 2027 election high blood pressure.

Wike made the vow on Friday in Abuja while speaking to journalists during an inspection of infrastructure projects in the FCT.

The minister reaffirmed his position that there is nothing like leading opposition party in the country.

Wike said: “I have told you, when you say we are leading the opposition, I have told you there is no opposition. What do you have? People who are just looking to see if they can stay relevant.

“Who is the opposition leader now? Obviously, it would have been PDP, but because of the crisis we have gone through, you can’t see a strong party that you would call the leading opposition party.

“So, I don’t care; whatever they feel is not my business. I don’t want them to feel well. My job is to make them feel unwell all day because they will have high blood pressure. I think that’s my job, to make them have high blood pressure.”

Wike vowed to ensure that the opposition continues to encounter crisis before the elections.

“I’m not here to make them perform well. And that is what we are doing to them. So, we have to be patient. It does not give me any headache. Everyone understands now what they’re going through, and I’m going to make things even harder for them,” he said.

The candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the just concluded Osun State governorship election, Bola Oyebamiji, on Friday met with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

This was barely 24 hours after incumbent Governor, Ademola Adeleke of Accord Party, who won the election, paid the President a visit and presented his Certificate of Return to him.

Speaking to newsmen after the meeting, Oyebamiji called for peace among political actors in Osun State, stating that the party is still reviewing the outcome of the election.

He said Tinubu advised him to approach the situation with a peaceful mindset.

According to him, Nigerians must understand that government is about the people, and for that reason, peace must be prioritised

“I met with the President, and what he said was that the most important thing is to run every election with a peaceful mind.

“It is important for us Nigerians to know that government is about the people, and because of that, it is important that we should be peaceful. I want to appeal to our people in Osun that they need to be peaceful,” Oyebamiji said.

He further stated that the party is still examining the books regarding the election, and will make its position known to the public in due course.

The APC candidate equally charged Governor Adeleke to call his supporters to order and prevent violence.

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has explained why its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, did not attend the signing of the National Peace Accord, saying the decision was intended to protest what it described as the failure of the process to effectively respond to electoral violence.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, disclosed this on Friday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.

Abdullahi said the party deliberately stayed away from the ceremony because similar peace agreements had been signed during previous election cycles without, in its view, sufficient action when political violence occurred.

He argued that the National Peace Committee, which facilitates the accord, should do more than bring political candidates together to sign agreements ahead of elections.

“We’ve been signing this thing year in, year out; every election cycle, we sign in support of this commitment. Things still happen; people still get killed, harassed, like in the case of Osun, but we don’t hear the Peace Committee say anything,” Abdullahi said.

The ADC spokesman specifically cited the violence surrounding the recent Osun State governorship election, alleging that the committee failed to respond publicly to comments by Senator Francis Fadahunsi that, according to him, could encourage violence.

“When Senator Fadahunsi said that they should go out and kill people, we didn’t hear the Peace Committee say anything. So, what is the point? So, it’s our (ADC) way of saying no,” he said.

Abdullahi said the party’s boycott was therefore intended to pressure the committee to make the peace process more effective and ensure that political actors were held accountable for inflammatory statements and actions.

“If we want to be part of this, if you want to be taking us seriously, then you need to up your game,” he said.

He also criticised what he described as the failure to challenge political statements that could contribute to electoral violence, regardless of who makes them.

The ADC spokesman referred to a statement attributed to President Bola Tinubu during the Osun election period, arguing that the Peace Committee should have publicly cautioned the President if it considered the comment inappropriate.

“When the President said all is fair in politics, he set the narrative for the violence that followed in the Osun election. We didn’t hear the Peace Committee say, ‘No, Mr President, that is not a good thing to say,’” Abdullahi said.

He maintained that the party was not opposed to the objective of promoting peaceful elections but wanted the process to include concrete measures for enforcing commitments made by political actors.

“We are saying you need to do more. It’s not just to gather us for the ceremony of signing. If we commit to something, you have to be able to ask people to abide by it,” he said.