Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike has opened up about his absence at the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, saying that it was a “complete flop”.
Wike, who spoke during a media chat on Wednesday, said that he does not attend a jamboree where “traders are in charge”.
“Anybody who knows me knows that I don’t attend something that’s a jamboree. I will not attend something that traders are in charge,” the former Rivers State governor said.
“The last leadership of the NBA shows that there was a trading. You saw the outcry; the NBA has never had that kind of conference since the NBA started. It was a complete flop.”
He accused the organisers of playing politics by using the event to give opposition parties a ground to sell themselves.
“Organisation was zero. Why? Instead of you to focus on the real thing the NBA conference was supposed to be, they started playing politics,” he said.
“They started having it as a ground for opposition parties to sell themselves.”
The conference, which had as its theme, “Beyond Limits,” had the candidates of some opposition parties as panelists.
They included Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), his Social Democratic Party (SDP) counterpart, Adewole Adebayo, African Action Congress (AAC) candidate Omoyele Sowore, Donald Duke of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and the vice presidential candidate of the African Democratic Party, Rotimi Amaechi.
The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, who was also present, defended President Bola Tinubu’s push for state police reforms.
Social media personality Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), was also a panelist.
The speakers shared divergent views on the state of the nation, including insecurity and other issues.
