By: Omoyele Sowore
A staff member of the Federal Capital Development Administration (FCDA), Mairiga Hassan Shaharu, was reportedly detained last Friday at the FCDA Police Post under the alleged orders of FCT Minister Nyesom Wike’s Chief Security Officer (CSO). Shaharu is accused of leaking documents purportedly showing the Minister illegally allocated significant plots of Abuja land to his two underage sons, a scandal initially brought to light by Peoples Gazette.
However, sources close to the situation contend that Shaharu, who works in the department handling new land applications, does not have access to the internal systems of the Land Department responsible for approvals or allocations, making the accusation of leaking such documents highly questionable.
Efforts to secure Shaharu’s release have escalated, with human rights lawyers Rosemary Hamza, Ak Musa, and another unnamed counsel visiting the police post. According to one of the lawyers, Wike’s CSO allegedly used a forged court order to justify Shaharu’s detention. The Investigating Police Officer (IPO) reportedly refused to display the order, and when a lawyer managed to glimpse it, it was discovered to be from a magistrate no longer presiding in the relevant jurisdiction, raising concerns of forgery and abuse of office.
After approximately three hours of telephone confrontations, Wike’s CSO reportedly claimed the IPO could not be located, a move described as a “ruse.” A senior female officer at the police post, summoned to the scene, allegedly stated she lacked the authority to release Shaharu, claiming he was “Wike’s personal detainee.”
Later, the CSO reportedly called back, asserting that Wike had “changed his mind” and the matter was now “beyond” him, placing it in the hands of the FCT Police Commissioner, CP Wale Ajao.
When contacted directly, CP Ajao allegedly maintained that the detention was based on a valid court order, purportedly unaware that the order had been identified as fake, and reiterated, “Go to court.”
In a development that has further intensified the dispute, Wike’s CSO reportedly called again, stating that Minister Wike himself wished to meet with the reporter of this story and the detained worker the following morning. The reporter, in response, firmly declined the summons, questioning the Minister’s authority to make such a demand and highlighting the inconsistency of detaining someone for leaking documents that, if the allocation claims were false, should not exist.
The reporter emphasized that Minister Wike, not Citizen Mairiga, should be the subject of an investigation regarding the alleged allocation of public lands to his children, deeming it a “clear criminal conduct.”
