{"id":71236,"date":"2025-07-22T20:54:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=71236"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:54:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:54:43","slug":"wike-backs-okpebholo-on-obis-security-clearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/07\/22\/wike-backs-okpebholo-on-obis-security-clearance\/","title":{"rendered":"Wike Backs Okpebholo on Obi\u2019s Security Clearance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has defended Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo, over his call for Peter Obi to seek security clearance before visiting the state.<\/p>\n<p>Okpebholo had linked Obi\u2019s recent visit to Edo to a security breach that allegedly left three people dead. Speaking at the commissioning of Edo Line in Benin City, Wike said he had similar experiences with Obi when he was governor of Rivers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Peter Obi was coming to my state, he notified me, and I provided vehicles and logistics for him,\u201d Wike said. He stressed that as a presidential candidate, \u201cany harm that comes to Obi would be blamed on the governor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wike clarified that Okpebholo\u2019s comment was not a ban but \u201ca call for cooperation to ensure security.\u201d He added: \u201cIf anything happens to Obi, they would accuse the governor that he was behind it\u2026 all you\u2019re saying is if you\u2019re coming, tell me, because I\u2019m here to protect you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The minister criticised those \u201cplaying to the gallery,\u201d saying: \u201cThis is not where a presidential candidate will be serving food. And you know this is a pretense. How long will you keep serving the food?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar condemned Okpebholo\u2019s remarks, insisting any \u201cthreat\u201d to Obi is \u201ca threat to the entire opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has defended Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo, over his call for Peter Obi to seek security clearance before visiting the state. Okpebholo had linked Obi\u2019s recent visit to Edo to a security breach that allegedly left three people dead. Speaking at the commissioning of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":71237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-71236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71238,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71236\/revisions\/71238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}