Former military Generals have expressed outrage over Tuesday’s clash between the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and a naval officer identified as A. Yerima, over alleged land grabbing.
The veterans, in separate interviews with The PUNCH on Wednesday, asserted that such confrontations undermine the chain of command and institutional respect.
In the wake of the outrage that trailed the incident, the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, said the ministry is investigating the matter. He assured that the Armed Forces would protect personnel carrying out lawful duties.
Speaking at a press briefing to commence activities for the 2026 Armed Forces Remembrance Day at the National Defence College, Abuja, the defence minister lauded Yerima for his composure during his face-off with the FCT minister.
“At the ministry, and indeed the Armed Forces, we will always protect our officers on lawful duty,’’ he noted. “We are looking into this issue and assure that any officer performing his duties lawfully will be highly protected. We will not allow anything to happen to him so long as he is doing his job, and he is doing it very well.”
The stand-off between Wike and the officer followed a row over the ownership of a piece of land being guarded by some armed military officers led by Yerima, on the instruction of a former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Zubairu Gambo (retd.).
Wike had alleged that the ex-CNS illegally took over the land. A video obtained by The PUNCH showed the visibly enraged minister confronting the officer.
Former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, asked Wike to publicly apologise to President Bola Tinubu, the Armed Forces, and the military officer involved in the clash.
Buratai, who served as Chief of Army Staff between 2015 and 2021, said Wike’s conduct was inappropriate and amounted to disrespect for the military.
Buratai, in a post on his Facebook page on Tuesday night, said, “The events of November 11, 2025, involving the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Barrister Nyesom Wike, demand an immediate and serious response.
“His public disparagement of a uniformed officer of the Nigerian Armed Forces transcends mere misconduct; it represents a palpable threat to national security and institutional integrity.
“A minister’s verbal assault on a military officer in uniform is an act of profound indiscipline that strikes at the core of our nation’s command and control structure. It deliberately undermines the chain of command, disrespects the authority of the Commander-in-Chief and grievously wounds the morale of every individual who serves under the Nigerian flag. Such actions erode the very foundation of discipline upon which our national security apparatus stands.”
Brig Gen Peter Aro (retd.) said the clash highlights the importance of respecting proper channels in a democracy.
He said, “The clash between Minister Wike and the young naval officer goes beyond personalities: it reflects how power should and should not be exercised in a democracy. The officer, by every account, was acting under lawful orders from his superior, the former Chief of Naval Staff; his duty was to obey the chain of command, not to improvise under political pressure.’’
While acknowledging the minister’s right to raise questions about the title of the disputed land, Aro faulted the process adopted by the former Rivers state governor.
“The minister, on the other hand, had every right to raise questions about land or its use, but only through lawful channels such as writing to the Minister of Defence, the Chief of Defence Staff, or approaching the courts. A public confrontation that diminishes institutional respect exposes the government’s internal disarray before the world.”
He added, “If this episode is not publicly condemned, it sends a dangerous message to the men and women who risk their lives daily for Nigeria’s sovereignty. The military must remain disciplined, but civilian leaders must also model restraint and humility.”
Retired Brigadier General Bashir Adewinbi described the incident as unacceptable.
“I did not expect a minister to behave like that toward a commissioned officer. The military is not just any organisation; it is under the command of the President, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Any confrontation with a military officer is, by extension, a confrontation with the Commander-in-Chief and should not be tolerated,” he said.
Wike’s aide defends principal
But the Senior Special Assistant on Publicity and Communications to the FCT minister, Lere Olayinka, defended Wike’s actions, describing the incident as the outcome of a land scam that misled a former naval chief.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, Olayinka said the disputed plot of land was originally allocated in 2007 for park and recreation purposes, not for residential or commercial development.
“That particular land was allocated to a company in 2007, Santos Estate Limited, for park and recreation. The company did not do anything on the land because that place is a parkway, it’s a walkway, a road corridor. You don’t build there,” Olayinka said.
He explained that in 2022, the company applied to the FCT Administration for a change of land use from park to commercial, but the request was declined.
“In 2022, the minister of FCT declined that request. Wike was not the minister then,” he noted.
According to Olayinka, despite the rejection, the company illegally partitioned the land and sold portions to private individuals, including Gambo.
“Probably in anticipation of the minister’s approval for conversion, the man decided to partition the land, a land allocated to him for park and recreation.
“He now partitioned the land and sold it to people, including the former Chief of Naval Staff,” he explained.
The aide also faulted the retired CNS’s response, alleging that he attempted to use military influence to assert ownership over the land.
“That is why I want to say that the Chief of Naval Staff was scammed. He has realised that he was scammed. Instead of coming out to seek help, he resorted to using military might.
“After selling land allocated to you for park and recreation, for people to build a house, who should the Chief of Naval Staff go and hold? The person who’s claiming or the government? “He chose not to hold the person or company who scammed him.”
Olayinka further clarified that the land in question lies within the Mabushi area, designated for public and corporate buildings, not private residences.
He added that Gambo had no valid title or approved building plan for the land.
“Again, that particular portion has now been designated for, you know, if you know Abuja very well, you know how Mabushi is.
“That is where you have the Ministry of Works environment. That portion of the land, that pathway is for public buildings and corporate buildings, not residential, meaning that you cannot build a residential house there.
“As of today, Vice Admiral Gambo does not have a document, a title document, showing that he owns the land. He does not own the land,” he added.
The aide further explained that “assuming but not conceding that he has title documents and he owns the land, before you begin development of a land, there are processes you must pass through.
“One of such processes is to have a building plan, a building plan showing what you want to put on the land. And you take your building plan to the development control.
“The question Nigerians should ask Vice Admiral Gambo is, did he take his building plan on that land to the development control? And did development control approve the building plan?”
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and constitutional law expert, Prof. Sebastine Hon, faulted Yerima’s confrontation with the minister, insisting his action was a “breach of the law.”
Reacting to the incident in a Facebook post on Wednesday, Hon condemned the officer’s decision to obstruct Wike’s access to the disputed plot of land, saying the act could not be justified under any lawful military order.
“Brushing sentiments aside, I hereby condemn in totality the actions of the Naval Officer, A.M. Yerima, who obstructed the FCT Minister from gaining access to that parcel of land, under the guise of ‘obeying superior orders.’
“The duty of a junior officer to obey the orders of his superiors, even though strongly upheld in military and paramilitary circles, has its own limitations recognised by no other authority but the Supreme Court of Nigeria,” he wrote.
Hon cited Supreme Court rulings in Onunze v. State (2023) 8 NWLR (Pt. 1885) 61 and Nigeria Air Force v. James (2002) 18 NWLR (Pt. 798) 295, which, according to him, clearly established that military officers are not bound to obey illegal or manifestly unjust orders.
“The illegality in that order stems primarily from the fact that no service law of the military permits a serving military officer to mount guard at the private construction site of his boss, especially under suspicious circumstances like this,” he stated.
He added that if security concerns existed, “the retired Naval Officer ought, under the circumstances, to have engaged the civil police.”
Hon further stressed that Wike exercises the powers of the President over land administration in Abuja, pursuant to sections 297(2) and other provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
“By section 302 of the same Constitution, read together with other extant Acts of the National Assembly, the President of Nigeria has delegated all powers with respect to land administration in the FCT Abuja to the minister.
“Going by constitutional and administrative law, therefore, Mr Wike stood in loco of the President of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces on that fateful day.
“Consequently, even if the superior officer were still in service, he would not disobey Mr Wike or obstruct him from entering the land. This was an affront to the civil authority of Mr President.”
While acknowledging the minister’s method may be brash, he said Wike’s action “is legal and lawful in all respects.’’
“Rather, it is the officer who obstructed him that has breached not just the Nigerian Constitution, but also service and extant regulatory laws.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, section 114 of the Armed Forces Act makes military personnel criminally liable for civil offences.
“This means the officer in question could be arraigned before a Court Martial for obstructing a public officer from performing his public duties, et cetera,” he added.
The law professor cautioned against celebrating the incident, warning that condoning such acts could embolden security personnel to disrespect civil authority.
“If such intolerable conduct by the young officer is not punished or is celebrated, this may unleash a reign of terror by the men in khaki against hapless civilians — with a grin or boast that ‘we did it to Wike and nothing happened,’” he concluded.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Simon Lough, said the minister acted within his legal authority as the President’s representative in the FCT, but questioned the propriety of his visit to the site.
According to him, “Legally, a minister, in this case being Nyesom Wike, is a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, appointed by the President to exercise powers vested in him by the Constitution in the Federal Capital Territory. Whatever action the minister takes is presumed to be an act of the President.”
Lough explained that all land in the FCT belongs to the Federal Government by virtue of the Constitution and the FCT Act.
“The President, through the provisions of the law, delegates the management of all FCT lands to the Minister,” he stated.
He cited several Supreme Court decisions affirming that only the FCT Minister has the authority to allocate or grant titles to land in the territory.
The retired deputy commissioner of police argued that while the minister was empowered to inspect any land in the FCT, his physical presence at the site was unnecessary.
“He undermined his office. As a minister representing the President, he should have directed an official correspondence or investigation instead of personally going to the location,” he pointed out.
The SAN further stressed that if the former CNS had acquired the land through irregular means, the minister should have formally written to the Chief of Defence Staff or the appropriate authorities to address the matter.
Speaking further, he said the soldier’s presence at the site raised questions of legality.
“The issue is whether that duty was a legal one. A soldier swears an oath to defend the Constitution and the territorial integrity of Nigeria, not to guard a private property belonging to a retired officer,” Lough observed.
He nonetheless faulted both sides, saying the situation could have been handled more prudently.
“Though the minister may have overreacted, the officer conducted himself maturely. Everyone involved bears some responsibility,” he said.
Another senior lawyer, who pleaded anonymity, criticised Wike’s conduct, saying it was unbecoming of a public officer of his status.
“I do not agree with his behaviour. How can you openly call a military officer a fool? Even if the soldier was in the wrong, two wrongs do not make a right,” he said.
He stressed that the minister could have pursued legal remedies rather than resort to “self-help.”.
The law prescribes procedures for reclaiming or repossessing land. A minister, even acting as the President’s delegate, cannot take the law into his hands. The officer could have sued him for assault.”
Also weighing in, Abuja-based lawyer and human rights advocate, Pelumi Olajengbesi, wondered if the FCT minister had any lawful authority to command or intimidate a military officer.
Olajengbesi explained that under the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the command and operational use of the Armed Forces rest exclusively with the President as Commander-in-Chief, exercised through the military chain of command and not through any civilian minister.
“The Armed Forces Act vests day-to-day command in the Chief of Defence Staff and the Service Chiefs. A soldier on duty takes orders only from superior officers, not from any minister,” he stated.
He clarified that while the FCT minister represents the President in civil administration, such authority does not extend to military command.
“No minister can lawfully countermand a soldier’s orders or issue binding instructions to an officer on duty,” he asserted.
Olajengbesi argued that although the FCT minister controls land administration, any conflict involving military personnel should be escalated through the proper security channels or to the President, not through confrontation. “Such behaviour is reckless, primitive, and an abuse of office,” he said.
He warned that the law offers no immunity for ministers who act unlawfully. “A minister who intimidates or obstructs an officer on lawful duty can be investigated and prosecuted like any other citizen,” Olajengbesi declared.
He urged the government to address the incident decisively, cautioning that unchecked excesses by political officeholders could lead to future clashes between civilians and the military.
“The Constitution draws a clear line; ministers handle civil administration while the President, through the military chain of command, controls the troops. A soldier answers to his commanders, not politicians.”
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